The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I think that I'll dispense with the HTML for the moment to simply write a review. In the case of Chromebook 2, it's a pleasure, since there's enough glitzy stuff and useful items in this book to make up for lack of description here.

What the Chromebook boils down to is a big list of equipment, ranging from personal weapons to cybernetics to programs to full-body conversions to airships. What differentiates it from other catalogs full of equipment is the personal vision that's gone into the game, as well as the inherent coolness of being able to drive an honest-to-god hovercar. Not just any hovercar; a Mach, or an Aerocop, or a Crowder. You could adapt this game to just about any near-future setting - Alternity, or Trinity, or even an adaptation of Batman Beyond - and have a ball with it. And if you actually own Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0, that's an extra gumball.

What does it contain? Stepping through it, you'll immediately be struck by the sheer amount of stuff in here. What you see here isn't the average stuff that the typical street cyberpunk will have; it's the latest stuff released onto the streets of Night City, Some of it will literally change your campaign, or open up new venues for it to explore.

The book opens up with minor cyberware - plug-in fingers, optical shields, anchoring cyberfeet, luminescent kill displays on the skin, automatic eye-color changes, subdermal armor, armor skin weaves, crawling cybernetic eyes - and proceeds to the equipment, including stuff like pheromonal perfume that works, or shoulder-mounted cameras that follow where you're looking, and comlinks that connect directly to a representative of your chosen faith - Prayerware, it's called. Almost all of it is useful stuff - I liked the detention collar, which shocks you and injects you with a sedative if you get out of the range of a particular signal. With the right amount of extrapolation, you could create adventures out of some of this stuff. I'm honestly tempted to go nuts and start listing every neat idea in the book, but then we'd be here all day and there'd be no need for you to buy the thing.

Some of it does tend towards the mundane - for example, options for phone lines include a split line, call waiting, voice mail and an emergency autodilar - it's not exactly soemthing that a GM couldn't come up with on his own, since most of this exists in the real world.

The weapons section is a bit difficult for me to review, mostly because I don't have the Cyberpunk rules; I have no way to judge if the weapons are overpowered or not. I can say with some surety that a sniper rifle that fires ramjet bullets, or a personal railgun, or a 30mm recoilless rifle, sounds a little overpowered for what amounts to an urban campaign. On the other hand - much unlike the thrice-cursed RIFTS - I'm to understand that the game actually tends towards messy splatters when hit, rather than jackasses jumping around in admantium armor and firing portable nukes at each other. Plus, some of the stronger weapons are specified to be for those who have succumbed to cyberpsychosis - what happens when you get too many cybernetics - so I believe that game balance is maintained. There's also non-lethal weapons, ranging from anti-crowd nauseators to rubber bullets.

Probably the central draw of the book will be the full-body conversions in the book - and this is some of the coolest stuff in the book, in my opinion. If you have enough money, and if your humanity is high, then you can completely swap your old human body for a new, fancy, cybernetic one. And, in a great nod to a proto-cyberpunk film, there's an option provided to be a spitting image of Robocop, right down to the gun holstered in your right thigh.

However, while they are massively cool, and can probably create entire adventures just by their existence, there's a few problems with them. One problem is the humanity cost. I have absolutely no idea how humanity costs work in Cyberpunk, but just about every full-body conversion costs something like 16d6+6 Humanity to make the shift. Unless humanity scores happen to top fifty on a regular basis, that's likely to drive most characters into raving cyberpsychosis. Or maybe it'll put a tiny dent in the massive amounts of Humanity that most human characters have; I really don't know.

There's also a number of questions that aren't exactly answered by this book. One of them is why the average firefighter would get a full-body conversion when a normal human wearing body armor and carrying a rebreather could do just as; it's like having a cybernetic mailman. As a matter of fact, a full conversion cyborg postal worker would be an extraordinarily bad idea. I can't stress that enough. They don't have cybernetic postmen in the book, but it's still not at all a good idea. I also question the wisdom of a cybernetic worker, mostly because the worker cyborg seems somewhat pointless - who's going to get a complete body conversion just so that they can work in a mine with greater efficiency? The book has corporations hiring somebody for ten to twenty-five years, then transferring them to a cyborg that mimics a human being - but there's not a lot of explanation as to what kind of pay a worker cyborg can expect. I understand the military conversions quite clearly, since the military would have the most use for a cyborg, but the book could have gone into more detail.

There's also the issue of humanity loss. This is more of a pet peeve than anything; the book suggests that losing humanity as the result of cybernetics will make you cold and emotionless, but I have a hard time crediting this. If anything, you'd start to act more human, focusing on the little minutiae of your former life in order to pretend that you're still human. I can't argue too loudly with the approach that Cyberpunk took, but the book doesn't focus much further on the issues surrounding becoming a cyborg. An entire book on the subject would be ncie, really. Next time, I suppose.

There's also a host of vehicles, including the aforementioned hovercars and the like. There's lots of good art here, easily convertible to another system - all that you have to do is show your players the picture and then give them your own stats. Airships - blimps and dirigibles - have made a comeback, which could make for an interesting scenario here and there. Again, there's not a lot of information on who's using them or how often, which I missed.

The book is rounded out with exotics - cybersurgery that'll transform you away from basic human into something else entirely. It's here where the book seems to get a little silly. For example, you can literally transform yourself into a humanoid cat, or a humanoid dog, or bear, or insect, or shark. It's weird-looking, and almost seems to step into the realm of Shadowrun at points - you can be an elf, or goblin, or orc, or troll; packages are provided for each. Then again, Furry fans and such will be in heaven.

In any case, I'd recommend Chromebook 2 to just about anybody running a science fiction campaign. The ideas on a single page can fuel plots well beyond the boundaries of a cyberpunk universe, and if you own Cyberpunk, I'm sure that you'll find it an excellent resource.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Chromebook 2: The Cyberpunk Style Guide
Author: Ben Wright, Mike Roter, Scott Taylor, Marcus Pregent, Craig Sheeley, Mike MacDonald, Ross Winn, Mike Pondsmith, Colin Tipton, Michael Todd Category: game Company/Publisher: R. Talsorian Games Line: Cyberpunk Cost: $14 Page count: 112 ISBN: 0-937-279-29-8 SKU: CP 3181 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 05/25/00. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalypse Generic	I think that I'll dispense with the HTML for the moment to simply write a review. In the case of Chromebook 2, it's a pleasure, since there's enough glitzy stuff and useful items in this book to make up for lack of description here. What the Chromebook boils down to is a big list of equipment, ranging from personal weapons to cybernetics to programs to full-body conversions to airships. What differentiates it from other catalogs full of equipment is the personal vision that's gone into the game, as well as the inherent coolness of being able to drive an honest-to-god hovercar. Not just any hovercar; a Mach, or an Aerocop, or a Crowder. You could adapt this game to just about any near-future setting - Alternity, or Trinity, or even an adaptation of Batman Beyond - and have a ball with it. And if you actually own Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0, that's an extra gumball. What does it contain? Stepping through it, you'll immediately be struck by the sheer amount of stuff in here. What you see here isn't the average stuff that the typical street cyberpunk will have; it's the latest stuff released onto the streets of Night City, Some of it will literally change your campaign, or open up new venues for it to explore. The book opens up with minor cyberware - plug-in fingers, optical shields, anchoring cyberfeet, luminescent kill displays on the skin, automatic eye-color changes, subdermal armor, armor skin weaves, crawling cybernetic eyes - and proceeds to the equipment, including stuff like pheromonal perfume that works, or shoulder-mounted cameras that follow where you're looking, and comlinks that connect directly to a representative of your chosen faith - Prayerware, it's called. Almost all of it is useful stuff - I liked the detention collar, which shocks you and injects you with a sedative if you get out of the range of a particular signal. With the right amount of extrapolation, you could create adventures out of some of this stuff. I'm honestly tempted to go nuts and start listing every neat idea in the book, but then we'd be here all day and there'd be no need for you to buy the thing. Some of it does tend towards the mundane - for example, options for phone lines include a split line, call waiting, voice mail and an emergency autodilar - it's not exactly soemthing that a GM couldn't come up with on his own, since most of this exists in the real world. The weapons section is a bit difficult for me to review, mostly because I don't have the Cyberpunk rules; I have no way to judge if the weapons are overpowered or not. I can say with some surety that a sniper rifle that fires ramjet bullets, or a personal railgun, or a 30mm recoilless rifle, sounds a little overpowered for what amounts to an urban campaign. On the other hand - much unlike the thrice-cursed RIFTS - I'm to understand that the game actually tends towards messy splatters when hit, rather than jackasses jumping around in admantium armor and firing portable nukes at each other. Plus, some of the stronger weapons are specified to be for those who have succumbed to cyberpsychosis - what happens when you get too many cybernetics - so I believe that game balance is maintained. There's also non-lethal weapons, ranging from anti-crowd nauseators to rubber bullets. Probably the central draw of the book will be the full-body conversions in the book - and this is some of the coolest stuff in the book, in my opinion. If you have enough money, and if your humanity is high, then you can completely swap your old human body for a new, fancy, cybernetic one. And, in a great nod to a proto-cyberpunk film, there's an option provided to be a spitting image of Robocop, right down to the gun holstered in your right thigh. However, while they are massively cool, and can probably create entire adventures just by their existence, there's a few problems with them. One problem is the humanity cost. I have absolutely no idea how humanity costs work in Cyberpunk, but just about every full-body conversion costs something like 16d6+6 Humanity to make the shift. Unless humanity scores happen to top fifty on a regular basis, that's likely to drive most characters into raving cyberpsychosis. Or maybe it'll put a tiny dent in the massive amounts of Humanity that most human characters have; I really don't know. There's also a number of questions that aren't exactly answered by this book. One of them is why the average firefighter would get a full-body conversion when a normal human wearing body armor and carrying a rebreather could do just as; it's like having a cybernetic mailman. As a matter of fact, a full conversion cyborg postal worker would be an extraordinarily bad idea. I can't stress that enough. They don't have cybernetic postmen in the book, but it's still not at all a good idea. I also question the wisdom of a cybernetic worker, mostly because the worker cyborg seems somewhat pointless - who's going to get a complete body conversion just so that they can work in a mine with greater efficiency? The book has corporations hiring somebody for ten to twenty-five years, then transferring them to a cyborg that mimics a human being - but there's not a lot of explanation as to what kind of pay a worker cyborg can expect. I understand the military conversions quite clearly, since the military would have the most use for a cyborg, but the book could have gone into more detail. There's also the issue of humanity loss. This is more of a pet peeve than anything; the book suggests that losing humanity as the result of cybernetics will make you cold and emotionless, but I have a hard time crediting this. If anything, you'd start to act more human, focusing on the little minutiae of your former life in order to pretend that you're still human. I can't argue too loudly with the approach that Cyberpunk took, but the book doesn't focus much further on the issues surrounding becoming a cyborg. An entire book on the subject would be ncie, really. Next time, I suppose. There's also a host of vehicles, including the aforementioned hovercars and the like. There's lots of good art here, easily convertible to another system - all that you have to do is show your players the picture and then give them your own stats. Airships - blimps and dirigibles - have made a comeback, which could make for an interesting scenario here and there. Again, there's not a lot of information on who's using them or how often, which I missed. The book is rounded out with exotics - cybersurgery that'll transform you away from basic human into something else entirely. It's here where the book seems to get a little silly. For example, you can literally transform yourself into a humanoid cat, or a humanoid dog, or bear, or insect, or shark. It's weird-looking, and almost seems to step into the realm of Shadowrun at points - you can be an elf, or goblin, or orc, or troll; packages are provided for each. Then again, Furry fans and such will be in heaven. In any case, I'd recommend Chromebook 2 to just about anybody running a science fiction campaign. The ideas on a single page can fuel plots well beyond the boundaries of a cyberpunk universe, and if you own Cyberpunk, I'm sure that you'll find it an excellent resource. -Darren MacLennan Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Chromebook 2: The Cyberpunk Style Guide