This new rules supplement provides everything players and Gamemasters need to create and run campaigns featuring cybernetics in the post-modern realm of cyberpunk fiction. Building on the d20 Future cybernetic rules, d20 Cyberscape includes rules for installing cybernetics and playing cyborgs, as well as new advanced classes and enhancements. d20 Cyberscape also features rules for magical and psionic cybernetics and virtual reality networks.
Product History
d20 Cyberscape (2005), by Owen K.C. Stephens, is a setting supplement for d20 Future (2004), which is itself a supplement for the d20 Modern (2002) roleplaying game. It was published in September 2005.
Continuing d20 Modern. d20 Future was the first major supplement for d20 Modern; it transferred the mechanics to the game to a dramatically different setting from the modern-day of the original rulebook. d20 Apocalypse (2005) then took the next step, offering a sub-setting for the Future rules that adapted them to a very specific type of Future play. d20 Cyberscape followed in Apocalypse's footsteps — detailing a Future where computers are king.
Expanding d20 Modern. d20 Cyberscape includes the standard expansions that you'd expect of a Future supplement. There's some nice integration with the Future Progress Levels, plus a set of three new advanced classes: the bionic agent, the cyberwarrior, and the implant hack.
d20 Cyberscape also contains extensive new rules systems for cybernetics and computer networks — including VRNet, previously a web enhancement for d20 Future. It even includes bizarre alternate cybertech, including fantasy cybernetics, horror cybernetics, bio-cybernetics, and nanotech — covering a variety of major subgenres of cyberpunk.
A History of Cyberpunk. Though there were cyberpunk precursor novels and novellas in the '70s, the cyberpunk genre got its actual start in the '80s thanks to novels like William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired (1986), and others.
The roleplaying industry got into the genre very early, thanks to Mike Pondsmith's innovative Cyberpunk RPG (1988), which was soon revamped as Cyberpunk 2020 (1990). It was highly influential, resulting in a total reinvention of science-fiction roleplaying games. Classics like Traveller (1977) and Star Wars (1987) struggled to keep up, while everyone started published cybergames of their own, from ICE's Cyberspace (1989) to Guardians of Order's Ex Machina (2004). However the most successful cybergame after R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk was doubtless FASA's Shadowrun (1989), which again reinvented the genre by mixing fantasy into its classic cybertropes.
Prior to the release of d20 Cyberscape, D&D didn't have much to do with the cybertrend. Spelljammer (1989) was sort of near the genre — but it was closer to steampunk than cyberpunk. The Kromosome (1994) setting for the Amazing Engine RPG (1993) more directly included cybernetics and computer networks. However, the d20 Modern line was the first to marry actual D&D mechanics with cybersettings, first in d20 Future (which included the Genetech biopunk setting and the initial rules for cybernetics), and now in d20 Cyberscape.
Expanding the Future World. d20 Cyberscape introduces a new Future campaign, "CyberRave". It's a pretty standard dark cyberpunk campaign, full of megacorps and cyber tech; it also includes yet another advanced class, the Cyber Raver.
About the Creators. Freelancer Stephens had been working with Wizards since the advent of D&D 3e. He'd previously authored PDF adventures and worked on d20 Apocalypse, but this was his first major solo work for the d20 Modern line.
