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Appearance
Upon first look this book still has a solid appearance about it, dated only by the fact it is a soft cover book with B&W artwork inside. The cover is glossy black with “Cyberpunk” printed in red across the top, under that is an illustration by Doug Anderson.
Inside, the layout is one that makes finding things easy with a decent index in the front of the book. The pages are done up in 2 columns across 80% of the page with the sidebar and it’s tasty bits of information about the game, the rules and the setting taking up the remaining 20%.
Most of the illustrations are top notch and with the last printing, new ones were added from some of their international editions.
Setting
The default setting for Cyberpunk 2020 is Night City and a dark future as seen through the eyes of Mike Pondsmith in 1990. At that time the Internet as we know it didn’t exist, the cold war was still going on (though coming to an end), and cell phones were the size of a brick.
Except for the timeline, the setting is relatively generic with the untamed areas of the United States overrun by marauding bands of gangs, preying on the Nomads who call the wasteland home or affected by a bio-plague. The cities are controlled by megacorps and the federal government has been neutered. People like Rockerboys and Medias help shape public opinion, yet most have given up hope, striving only to find their next bite of Kibble.
System
For those familiar with d20, the resolution system will look vaguely familiar, roll a d10, add in your skill rating and your stat, and beat a target number.
Character creation is very simple, depending on the level of the game, the GM has the option of assigning points for stats which range from 1-10, or to roll dice.
After you have laid out your characters stats, you run through the lifepath via a number of dice rolls that helps flesh out your character, sometimes in good ways, sometimes bad. Once this is done and adjustments are made you move to the next section.
The characters are based upon roles which give you 9 skills plus a special ability which you divide 40 skill points among. A character will also gain pickup skills dependant upon a couple of stats. Something that is normally overlooked is that new roles can be made simply by tweaking the skill list of existing roles, or modifying/making a new special ability.
A characters starting cash is dependant upon his Special Ability score, from there you can buy your clothes, armor, weapons and cyberware, don’t forget it's all about style over substance!
Cybernetics
The cybernetics in CP2020 range from silly to very powerful, but all come with some sort of price, the loss of humanity. Those familiar with the game have heard the arguments concerning humanity loss with the addition of cyberware. In one very real sense it is a way to enforce game balance, but in another if run by the GM and players right, it shows the dehumanizing aspects of replacing perfectly good meat parts for something artificial.
The Net
Cyberpunk 2020 was released in 1990, before the net really became big. Before that time most (tech savvy) people communicated via Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs). These systems were usually one node computers that an account had to be added to before access was granted. Each of these computers could talk to one another via a node/hub system where it could take days for data to get from one machine to another depending on polling times.
Knowing that piece of computer history helps explain the reasoning for the netrunning interface as presented, the almost exclusivity of the netrunners domain and the datafortress’ that they tried to hack into.
That being said, there is a lot of room for improvement in the netrunning aspect of the game
Summary
At this point in its life, there are two ways to play this game, either as written as an alternate earth timeline that branches off in 1990 with its new wave style, or tweak the setting to where it fits your idea of the near, dark future.
After all these years Cyberpunk is still a fun way to kill people and take their stuff
