I've been running Cyberpunk RED games, including a 2077 themed game, and have also been toying with the idea of adapting the RED rules, or alternatively working from the Cyberpunk 2020 rules and adopting elements of RED, to run in the Night City 2020 and Cyberpunk 2020 setting more broadly.

On the side I have been looking into other systems that work at providing guides for cyberpunk settings, and one in particular that has struck me as interesting is The Sprawl, a Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset. In itself, it is really interesting, but I was wondering if it could be expanded beyond the Mission orientation to a broader life-struggle narrative, by adopting elements from Apocalypse World. Also, while the Sprawl appears to be pretty focused on urban and corporate missions, cyberpunk does incorporate badlands/nomad/rough environments, that it feels like Apocalypse World could bring into the mix.

I've actually even been toying with the concept that something like the Cyberpunk RED setting, where it is post-DataKrash and post-Fourth Corporate War, and things are more devastated, post-apocalyptic than Cyberpunk 2020 (although it was post-Collapse, but it didn't somehow feel quite drastic enough to call it post-apocalyptic?) - I've been toying with whether the "psychic maelstrom" in Apocalypse World could be treated as akin to the Old Net, with its chaos and dangerousness, rogue AIs, long-forgotten data, etc - and wondering if the "weird" aspect of Apocalypse World could be understood to be somehow this Old Net, vs the more New Net, corporate realm that Hackers/Infiltrators mostly find themselves operating in with their cyberdecks... I'm not quite sure how to make it fit, but anyway, just thought I'd throw my ideas out there and see if others are interested in these concepts, and had any advice or experience with these systems.

Definitely interested. Love the idea of the psychic maelstrom in a cyberpunk setting. Curious to see how AW scales to a different environment

If we could play psychic characters, I'd love that.

I'd suggest looking into The Veil, another PbtA system that incorporates a lot of what you might be looking for given your description.  In addition to including plenty of your standard cyberpunk genre playbooks, it also allows for the presence of the wasted lands outside of the cityscape (the Wayward playbook), folks with psychic powers (the Empath), or even people that eschew cybernetics altogether (the Honed playbook).

Additionally, rather than the usual Stats you'd find in PtbA games, The Veil instead uses emotions - for example, one character might be most effective when they're scared, but really struggles if they're angry - so how the characters feel drives a lot of the action.  That might contribute to your goal of life-struggle narrative, as well, since internal state is a constant factor.

Like most PtbA systems, it's flexible in that the play group helps build the setting and world together.  You could definitely pick and choose stuff from The Spawl and AW and make it work, but if you wanted to just focus on one system, give The Veil a read! :)

I do have The Veil, but somehow I found the whole emotion thing felt not quite like what I was looking for... But I definitely will take a look again.

I have found also there is the 2021 version Burned Out, which is quite different but maybe could have some ideas/concepts too?
This message was last edited by the user at 12:47, Mon 13 Jan.

In reply to Biotech (msg # 1):

I've always wanted to get into The Sprawl, but I've never felt confident my character idea fit. Also it's been a long time since The Sprawl first came out, I don't know if they have more than one edition now.

In reply to steelsmiter (msg # 6):

I got The Sprawl from DrivethruRPG. As far as I can tell there is only the one edition, though I see discussion on reddit that there was a 2nd edition coming, but no further updates, from what I can see about that.

Yeah, I'd remembered seeing that discussion, but didn't know anything further. In any case, I'm not going to bury the lead since these posts tend to be short. I'm definitely interested in The Sprawl.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:40, Tue 14 Jan.

Actually starting to think it might be better to just start with The Sprawl to begin with, and then maybe in time expand things?

Here it is: link to another game