Most cyberpunk games come down on the heavier side of mechanics and world building. It makes sense since one of the big themes of the genre is modifying yourself through brand name technology to become something more human than human. It’s one of my favorite parts of these games, too. I get a nostalgic thrill leafing through the equipment books in these sorts of games and see the subtle ways those books build the world for the table. CBR+PNK Augmented, by designer Emanoel Melo, takes things in a radical new direction. It strips down mechanics, character creation and even the storyline to get to the raw core of cyberpunk gaming. The first run you play is the last run for your characters and it’s time to see if they can get out. Mythworks sent a review copy to me for this review. Does CBR+PNK Augmented make the big score? Let’s play to find out.
The game runs on a stripped down version of John Harper’s Blades In The Dark. Characters are filed (not created) by choosing their approaches, skills and their signature piece of cyberware. Thi is where the world building starts as players choose the brand names for their best gear and it seems like a good place to workshop the identities of those companies and where they fit into the dystopian future everyone creates at the table together. Gear is handled in an as needed manner with a general loadout chosen first and then specific items picked as they come into the narrative. The GM, called the Operator, pours over a list of prompts to inspire obstacles, twists and other challenges for the players to overcome. The runners also choose an angle which explains why they are risking it all for one last run and how their story might turn out based on the final denouement roll where players roll a Fiasco-style ending after the job is done. Things rarely end well for the runners but at least they get to have some say in how their lives ended poorly.
The physical version of the game is a knockout. It comes in a fold out box packed with pamphlets that opens up like it is a sweet cyberpunk gadget one might bring along on a job. The basic rules and GM advice are spread out over two pamphlets and it includes five player files that can be used with dry erase markers. Beyond that, there are a half dozen other pamphlets that expand the rules and scope of the game. These pamphlets include antagonistic hunters, fantasy hacks for players who want to mix machine and magic and even a scenario that casts the players against an invisible hunter stalking them during an extraction job in the jungle. Even though the basic game is cast as One Last Job, my favorite rules expansion is The Rookie. One player takes on the role of the fresh faced citizen forced into the cyberpunk life. Players run a handful of jobs with the last one being the one that confronts the Rookie’s main reason for becoming a runner and ending with them either back in their boring life once again chained to the corporation or bleeding out on the street but free.
Much like :Otherscape Metro, what excited me most about the play experience is creating a cyberpunk world together. The original works that inspired games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun were commenting on their modern era which are now decades in the past. I really enjoyed coming up with obstacles and complications that reflected our modern anxieties and technological troubles. One character’s gun jammed up because it detected the bullers were not from the original manufacturers. Another player did wonders hacking with their wireless hand until wearing some magnetic climbing gloves to get to their target scrambled his homebuilt electronics. It’s fun to make this stuff up as you go, rather than be chained to ideas from 30 years ago.
CBR+PNK Augmented works best with players who can run on the fly with these ideas. More familiarity with cyberpunk tropes means more interesting riffs but I think it’s more important to have players who are also comfortable playing Forged In The Dark games. The stripped down pamphlets make more sense when you have a basic knowledge of this style of game and fill in the gaps in those cases where its unclear. While I had fun with all the games of CBR+PNK Augmented I played, the one with a table full of cyberpunk fans who also had spent some time in Doskvol was the one that ran the most smoothly.
Bottom Line: CBR+PNK Augmented puts one last run in the hands of your players and it’s best if they are bold enough to build the dark future together at the table.
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