Review: Neon City Overdrive

 Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Cyberpunk is one of my favorite genres and I think it is a genre that is always under represented in various forms of media. Though it seems to get a decent amount of attention in the table top role playing genre. So, I am always on the look out of new cyberpunk games because it is one of my favorite genres and I have fond memories playing other cyberpunk themed games. I became aware of this game due to a discussion thread on a forum and the author brought back a vague memory and I was very happy to discover that Nathan Russell is the same mind behind FU (Free Form Universal) rpg. 

Disclaimer: I Was provided a physical copy and a PDF for review purposes.

Presentation: This book packs some serious eye catching and mood inspiring in 69 pages (more if you include the character sheets). Each page is full colored where the text is set against a light honeycomb pattern which I do not find distracting at all. The core text is black in a readable font and there is an addition font that looks like how words on a computer screen would appear if they started it glitch out (various lines stretching it). The main headers are highlighted in purple and the minor headers are highlighted in yellow. The various sidebar/advice boxes are in pink with white lettering. The book has a table of contents and in various sections has a slang dictionary. The book is mostly single column with some double column use on various pages. This formatting is coupled with surreal art that is designed with dynamic lighting, something you would expect from a neon city. The book itself (without even reading it) really sets the tone and mood for cyberpunk. 

Character Creation: Character creations follows these steps:

1. Visualize your cyberpunk. Who are they , what do they do, and what trouble have they escaped from?
2. Choose or create three Trademarks. These are broad tags that describe the most important, useful, or interesting things about your character. 
3. Pick four Triggers that become Edges and write them down next to the relevant Trademark.
4. Write two flaws for your character. These are troubles, problems or disadvantages your character has to deal with. 
5. Choose or randomly decide a drive for your character. What makes them keep taking dangerous jobs?
6. Write your gear. You can have any basic gear that your Trademarks would logically allow. Roll for up to four pieces of specialized gear. 
7. Round out your character by giving them a cool nickname and description. Tell the other players about your bad-ass cyberpunk. 

Resolution:  The games uses a dice pool of d6's (it is a good idea to have two different color of dice because you build a diced pool with action (positive) and danger (negative) dice. Neon City Overdrive also uses two different symbols to differentiate the dice in text). The dice pool starts with a single dice then you add one action die to the dice pool for each of the following:

• A single relevant Trademark
• Each relevant edge the Trademark has
• Each tag the can be exploited
• Having a better position 
• Each relevant tag on special gear

Then you add a danger die to the pool for each of the following:

• Every Trauma the character has
• Each hindering Condition
• Each tag that increases your difficulty
• A poor position/being rushed
• Not having necessary gear
• Facing an obstacle of greater scale 

Roll those bones and check the results. Only the highest action die that is left after the danger dice cancel out the action dice is used to determine success. 

• Result of 6 is a complete success. Additional successes create boons that your character can use. 
• Result of 4 or 5 equals a partial success. It is failing forward - your character succeeds but at a cost. 
• Result of 3 or less is a failure.

Danger dice that match action dice cancel them out. So a 6 result on an action die with a matching danger die cancels out that action die. If no action dice or left or the remaining action dice are 1s, the character suffers a botch - something bad happens. 

 

It only takes one success or partial success to succeed at an action. If that attempt fails another character can try the same thing or the character can try it in a different way/with different equipment/etc. There are extended checks that require three successes. Characters can also help one another which gives a positive dice to the lead character. 

When combat breaks out, roll a d6 for initiative and roll again at the beginning of each turn. On a 1-3 the enemy goes first, and on a 4-6 the players go first. The ranges are abstract and handled in a close, near, and far system. Characters can typically do one major action like make an attack and a minor action like move, hand something to someone, etc. 

 

Combat is player facing which means the GM does not roll to attack, but narrates what is going on and the player has to narrate how the character is trying to avoid the situation. 

Crunch: The crunch is relatively light. The game takes heavy inspiration from Freeform Universal (one of the authors original games), Fate, Fudge, Powered by the Apocalypse, and a few others. I think the hardest part is really just getting the flow of the system on the player side and the GM side. There are some subsystems the operate outside of the core mechanics which I will mentio (these do not add difficulty to the game mechanics):

• Harm: All PCs start out with three harm levels and when the characters take damage the players mark off  a box (and sometimes more). If you cannot mark hit, the character suffers a trauma and roll d6 - one a 1 the character is dying and will die in d6 turns unless aid can be rendered
• Healing: The character gains a hit when they have time to take a short rest in relative safety. First aid can also be administered with a successful attempt. Traumas can only be healed in downtime
• Stunt Points: All players start out with three stunt points and they can be spent to use a second Trademark in a check, soak all hits from a single source, change a die roll by +/- 1, or add an additional detail/tag to a scene. They refresh between jobs and can be awarded for doing cool things
  
• Experience: The experience track is very story oriented and are marked for botches and surviving a job (I didn't say the job had to be successful). Clear five experience to write a new Trademark (to a maximum of  5), Write a new Edge for any Trademark, increase your total hits (to a maximum of 4), or increase your stunt point pool (to a maximum of 5)
• Drive: Each character has a drive and a drive track (10 boxes). When they do things to further their drive they increase on the track and when they do things that don't or other situations hinder their drive they go backwards on the track.
  

Final Thoughts: As I have stated before, I really enjoy Cyberpunk but a lot of the games on the ttrpg market today and extremely rules heavy or the mechanics are convoluted (especially for going into the net). When Neon City Overdrive landed on my radar I over the moon that it was going to be rules light and narrative driven. When I looked into it more (before I got my hands on it) I was worried because it listed inspiration from Fate/Powered by the Apocalypse. I am personally not a fan of those games but I was very surprised reading the book. So surprised in fact that I read it cover to cover twice in one sitting. 

The way it is written really evokes the them and ideas of cyberpunk right off of the bat and the implied skeleton of a cyberpunk reality really helps in creating a background for a campaign. Also, the rules are mostly confusing and straight forward. There is not a focus on tags and there is advice to only use a few of the important ones and that is it. This translates into great GM advice in regards to hard and soft consequences, timers, cinematic philosophy, and other aspects of the system and its use in the setting. Do not let the the book fool you, there is a lot of information crammed into the pages that include sample jobs, various threats, and enough Trademarks/Edges/Tags suggestions to make unique characters. 

I think a couple of my favorite things about this game is the downtime (where you can recover, spend leverage, spend experience, etc), stunt points (reminds me of Bennies from Savage Worlds, the GM section (lots of goods stuff there), and the system for specialized gear (which the player has a chance to roll for up to 4 pieces of specialized gear that have their own tags and can be used to increase the action/positive dice in a roll) that the characters "gear up" for at the beginning of every mission. 

It would be a disservice if I did not mention that the rules for cyberware and interfacing are really elegant. Cyberware is handed by an appropriate Trademark and all aspects of interfacing with the net are handled through normal dice rolls and damage usually carries over. 

The two one shots I ran of this were a extremely fun to GM and all the players had a good time with crazy shenanigans all the way around. Though some of the players got a little confused (and I was initially as well) in regards to triggers and edges though this character creation example really helped to clear some of the confusion up.

You can find Neon City Overdrive here:

• drivethrurpg (there is even a hardcover option)
• Peril Planet 

There is two supplements out for it as well:

• Skinjobs
• Psions