Technoir, a new cyberpunk game

Technoir

Playing it safe isn't working anymore; you're not going to get out of this clean. You have illicit tech and the talent to use it. Time to go shake the city and see what falls out. You'll get hurt, sure, but what kind of pain will you deal out?
Technoir is a roleplaying game. You play protagonists like cyber-tweaked couriers, hard-nosed investigators, and drugged-out hackers making opportunities for themselves in a despairing world. Using a rules-light system with enough intricacies to spark new fires of hardboiled crime novels and cyberpunk science fiction, Technoir lets you coax, hack, fight, prowl, and shoot your way through a dark future. It features Transmissions--city guides brimming with plot nodes to inspire your high-tech adventures--that the GM uses to create tangled and compelling plot webs that expand and evolve as the players' characters engage it.

yeha this is very cool, i had a quick read through the system and it seems very smooth, but at the same time very adaptable, are you getting this book?

It is only being sold as a pdf at this point. But I probably will when it comes out as a book.

i might see if i can find the pdf

Cool give me a yell if you find it. I did some snooping and the author wrote on his blog that it will be in print September
http://jeremykeller.com/2011/08/01/gencon-2011-games-on-demand/

yeah i have really found no trace, it must not be a very well know thing.

It is brand new and is a small publisher.

yeah that very true
i will keep looking.

The book turned up today. It looks really cool, Neuromancer and Snowcrash are sited as two of the three main influences.
If the Perthocalypse fizzles I think we should try this one out.
I am already having visions of a dark rainy city, a disease known as the shivers, augmented bodyguards called escorts, bioengineered dolls, cabals of datareavers skulking through the interface and shimmer swarms reproducing in secret military installations.







A few picks to set the mood.

This book is a rules-lite settingless game designed to emulate cyberpunk a'la noir.

A couple of things I really like are the transmissions and the way contacts work to drive the plot forward.

Transmissions are basically a set of tables representing interesting locations, threats, factions, objects, events and connections of a near future city.
They are used to generate plot elements and they are meant as inspiration rather than a rigid rule set you have to follow which is a good thing in my opinion, it just means you wont ever be staring at a blank piece of paper while trying to create a scenario.
Here is how it works, while the players are generating their characters the GM rolls three times on the master chart of a transmission, this will give me three plot nodes I link these together however I like.

Say I rolled -

1. A murder scene
2. A corrupt cop
3. an illegal implant

I draw a line between each plot node, each line is how the two things are connected. For example, I could say that the corrupt cop is the one who was killed at the murder scene, he could be investigating it or could be the murderer.

The other thing I really like are the connections. They are family, trusted friends etc, you pick three to start and during character creation you can call on each one up to two times for favours, they can provide things at a discount, implant cybernetics for free among other things.
Each time a connection is tapped for a favour he becomes drawn into the plot. The first favour causes his name to be written next to the plot nodes, the second creates a line between him and a plot node. Like the first three plot nodes you determine what kind of relationship the line represents.
Connections also provide information during play, as well as performing additional favours. Each time they are questioned the GM rolls again on the transmission and another plot node is added, eventually a mystery or conspiracy is revealed with the characters at ground zero, then the gloves come off.

Characters and rolls are really straight forward. Determine what verb you are using (coax, hack, fight, prowl, shoot, move, etc) pick up that many action dice.
Determine if any adjectives, objects or tags are relevant (fast, strong, accurate, etc) optionally you can add up to that many push dice to your roll, they are finite and you start with three so you may not want to, but to make the effects of your roll lasting you will want to roll at least one or two.
Lastly hurt dice, you have one hurt dice for each applicable negative adjective or tag, these can be anything from wounded to glitching (for cybernetics or computer gear.)

Roll all of the die, if a hurt dice matches an action and/or push dice then they are removed from the roll. You look for the highest of the remaining action and push dice if there is more than one of the highest die then the result is considered to be .1.
Eg; if I roll a 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 on my action and push dice and a 2 and 5 on my hurt dice I am left with 3, 4, and 4. My result is 4.1, it is mainly just to indicate that a 4.1 will beat a 4 but not a 5, it is somewhere in the middle.
The characters are tough too, the hurt dice are inflicted when an opponent rolls and spends a push dice to make the hurt dice stay around longer, but wont immediately kill a character unless he is a henchman. After each scene the accumulated hurt dice are rolled, a 6 means the character is dying, more than one means he is dead. Both can be recovered from, but if the roll to treat the character fails he is dead for good.

There is a bit more to it, enough to make it tactical, but not enough to bog it down.
It is an interesting system and worth a go.

yes yes yes, get this going, so going to read snow crash next.