Even when you do not know Rodney Thompson’s title you’re prone to have performed considered one of his video games. He’s the designer of Lords of Waterdeep and has labored on a number of editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars Saga Version and lots of different position taking part in video games. He began his personal firm, Scratchpad Publishing, in 2018. He’s tackled fantasy heists with Nightfall Metropolis Outlaws and superheroes with Spectaculars. Now he’s bringing the third recreation utilizing the identical system, Neon Metropolis Outlaws to Kickstarter with the hopes that gamers will construct their very own cyberpunk dystopias to insurgent towards.
“Each Nightfall Metropolis Outlaws and Spectaculars use the identical core decision system as Neon Metropolis Outlaws,” mentioned Thompson. “With this being the third time round I’ve a variety of precise play suggestions to lean on. This recreation definitely extra clearly defines a variety of issues that had been extra open-ended for Gamemaster interpretation within the earlier video games. For instance, in my different two video games I inspired the particular person working the sport to introduce “obstacles to the gamers’ success” in sure scenes, and left it as much as them to determine what an appropriate impediment can be. For Neon Metropolis Outlaws, I am attempting to elucidate what an appropriate impediment is, in recreation phrases and never simply when it comes to the narrative, however embrace language that also leaves it open if the particular person working the sport needs to do one thing apart from what the foundations suggest. One other factor I realized from Nightfall Metropolis Outlaws particularly is that relating to a heist recreation the place the gamers give you their very own plans, some teams want much more steering than others, particularly gamers coming from very reactive video games or conventional mass-market RPGs. Neon Metropolis Outlaws eventualities embrace much more steering for what to inform the gamers up-front, together with providing up a collection of starter questions that they need to be asking as they put collectively their plan. Who’s the top of safety? What sorts of anti-hacking software program does the system have? What is the format of the constructing they’re robbing? Skilled teams might not want these immediate questions, however it offers newer or much less proactive gamers one thing to latch onto for the primary few days of the job, giving them clear objectives to pursue whereas they begin formulating their general plan.”
One of many appeals of the sport is constructing a cyberpunk world that displays fashionable anxieties about expertise and the imbalance of energy. Basic cyberpunk video games usually wrestle with incorporating new concepts into their settings. Neon Metropolis Outlaws provides a contemporary setting constructed collectively by the gamers and Sport Grasp throughout Session Zero.
“Once you’re flipping by way of the gear part of a number of video games,” mentioned Thompson, “you do not simply choose a pistol, a sword, a sniper rifle, and so forth. as your weapon, you choose an Ares Predator or an Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen. So, within the Neon Metropolis Outlaws setting e book, I’ve acquired pages the place you outline town’s preeminent weapons producer, and people pages embrace a spot the place you get to take weapons that you simply discovered, created, or obtained throughout the recreation after which make that individual mixture of base weapon and its key phrases into a particular weapon that’s now simply part of the setting. I do know that these parts will likely be current, and I will know the broad-strokes form of these parts since they use multiple-choice inquiries to information the setting’s creation. After I’m designing a job the place you need to steal the plans for a brand new fight robotic from the Robotics Firm, within the situation I simply have to reference the corporate by its setting e book designation, and the gamers can then fill within the particulars with what they’ve created.”
It may appear unusual however cyberpunk video games are very talked-about in the meanwhile. A few of that may be assigned to the success of Cyberpunk 2077, however video games outdoors of that setting have additionally seen a resurgence. A few of that’s want success; in fictional cyberpunk worlds, gamers can combat again towards corruption and energy with weapons and chrome.
“It is very straightforward to really feel powerless as of late,” mentioned Thompson, “to really feel despair as a result of the world is so huge and so difficult and even in the event you attempt to do what you assume is true it might not transfer the needle. So I needed to create a recreation that, even for a quick second of recreation, helps you to really feel like you may push again and have an effect. There’s an entire part of play within the recreation, which my volunteer playtest corps is placing by way of its paces in the meanwhile, referred to as the Revolution the place you kind of zoom-out to a city-scale perspective and make selections on behalf of the group to which you belong, taking actions which have bigger repercussions and might finally lead to districts of town declaring their independence, companies being toppled, nigh-immortal executives being dropped at justice, and so forth. The Revolution is about doing the sorts of issues that in different video games you may construct entire campaigns round, however permits you to evolve town you’ve created just a little extra quickly and see an even bigger influence over the course of just some classes. On high of all that, I believe there’s additionally some catharsis within the parody/satire that naturally comes from player-driven setting constructing. In my house playtest marketing campaign, town’s largest quick meals chain known as “Padsta” they usually mainly serve a mishmash of various noodle dishes from all totally different cultures, so you may order a bowl of ramen noodles and a plate of fettuccine alfredo and a aspect of pad Thai all in the identical order, and the corporate’s slogan is “Suck It Down!” It is clearly the form of creation that’s simply at house in Idiocracy as it’s in a cyberpunk metropolis, however I believe giving gamers an opportunity to skewer our present company cultures additionally acts as a form of aid valve that individuals sorely want.”
Neon Metropolis Outlaws is crowdfunding from now by way of June twelfth, 2025.
