JKW

Concept: “The heist begins as the PCs are traveling on the metro. First, the train blows past their stop. Then, the door locks engage. Finally, the train starts going fast.  REALLY FAST. CYSG puts out a localized RCD blast: ‘To all aboard, the train has been hijacked… ...stop the train, get a reward… ...you have approximately...twenty minutes before the train derails…’”

Content: A gig to put a halt to a train-jacking.

Writing: Concise descriptions with bursts of flavor to flesh out train car events, inhabitants, and potential outcomes.

Art/Design: White on black with pink and yellow accents. Wide spread of content across quartered sections, with a diagonal map of a train car cutting across them. Illustrations of a train car interior and an NPC portrait accompany the text.

Usability: High contrast text/ground. Initial read-through may be somewhat confusing, as supplement “begins” on lower left and then moves up and to the right across multiple separated sections of diagonally oriented content. A player handout of train car map/layout is included.

Concept: “Chiphead. Holobob. Eyerot. People talk a lot of shit. Let them. You know something they don’t: the whole world’s a stage, and you’re a motherfucking star. All you gotta do is keep dancing, and let the brain-tape roll.”

Content: A class for the talent, the face, the influencer, the fame addict.

Writing: Intriguing class features that evoke a mix of excitement and outright horror that feels completely appropriate for the streets of Cy.

Art/Design: Two-page spread with a portrait illustration of a brain dancer on the left with class features in creatively organized tables on the right.

Usability: For the most part, each section of content is visually distinct from the others, which makes for easy navigation on the page. However, the file is provided as a PNG, so text is not embedded (no searching or copying/pasting available).

Concept: “You are one of the last b-ball players alive in the post-cyberpocalypse. Though you might be playing "iso" nowadays, your indomitable spirit blazes brighter than the Larry O'Brien trophy itself, and you remain committed to playing the game the right way, as Saint Naismith intended.”

Content: A self-described “meme” class, for the player who understands ball is life.

Writing: Terse class feature labels and mechanics to keep the focus on core basketball elements.

Art/Design: Two-page spread with a pixelated image of Charles Barkley on the left and a cluttered ‘game plan’ arrangement of text boxes on the right, over a diagram of a basketball half-court. Text is mostly white on black/maroon and white on blue.

Usability: Visually, most text is high-contrast, with large bolded numbers to help distinguish each content item. However, text is not embedded, so no searching/selecting is possible. Also, one of the class ‘background’ tables is numbered in a potentially confusing manner for the reader scanning left-to-right and top-to-bottom.

Concept: “Emily Radfield, a ripperdoc based in westside Laketon, received a postmortem message from her friend, Sarna---a dead man's switch. Emily hires the PCs to infiltrate a cyber-scav chop shop and recover Sarna's remains. She also wants the PCs to ‘kill as many of those scum-sucking assholes as humanly possible.’”

Content: A gig to infiltrate and retrieve a body from a scavenger stronghold.

Writing: Plenty of details to outline what the deal is, who’s involved and why, and what a GM can spring on the PCs as they seek out their target.

Art/Design: Ultra-wide four-column layout, with three columns of text on the left and a map of the chop shop on the right. Black-on-white color scheme complemented by color highlights in and around the map.

Usability: Each section of content is consistently presented, with distinct whitespace and border use to indicate particular kinds of content. Bold and italics help to emphasize key elements GMs may want to attend to.

Concept: “Your time’s almost up. Like all life, you’re destined to die. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very, very brightly. But if you are gonna burn out, you may as well take the city with you.”

Content: A class for the player whose fleeting time is an inspiration to be punk as fuck.

Writing: Incredibly brief class features and descriptions that call on recognizable archetypes from cyberpunk media to suggest character possibilities.  

Art/Design: Two-page spread with class details to the left, enmeshed amidst a skyline background image, and a pixelated glitch art portrait illustration of a synthetic to the right.

Usability: Some text is very easy to identify and read, while others are a bit trickier due to contrast issues. Because class is provided as a PNG, text is not embedded (so no searching or copying/pasting is available).

Concept: “You once had it made. A life in the Hills, free from the burdens of capitalism. But something happened. You were cast out, thrown from Heaven’s Gates. Welcome to hell.”

Content: A class for anyone who had it all but now feels less than zero.

Writing: Vivid background tables and features serve as vignettes around which a tragic character can easily cohere.

Art/Design: An abstract illustration of an angel fills the left side of a two-page spread, while class details are arranged around a pattern near the center of the spread.

Usability: Distinct sections are recognizable and readable, with identifiable headings/labels. However, class is provided as a PNG so text is not selectable (no searching, copying/pasting, or screen reader functionality available)

Concept: “Radia Embtell, a junior executive officer of Cynergy Water & Power Co., has been given the onerous task of liberating an offshore oil rig from a group of eco-terrorists calling themselves “the Bitter Suns.” The Bitter Suns’ list of demands consists of but a single item: the immediate ceasing of planetary resource exploitation. “A fantasy, of course. Utter nonsense…” Radia has no idea what the Bitter Suns are planning with the oil rig—and she doesn’t care, either. She hires the PCs to retake the oil rig, “using whatever means necessary. If you can’t do the job, don’t bother coming back—I’ll kill you myself.” Though Radia isn’t one to explain herself to a group of scum-sucking street punks, she’ll let slip during negotiations that Cynergy Water & Power Co. is unwilling to mobilize its corporate military against the Bitter Suns. She will not elaborate on why, however.”

Content: A job to repossess an oil rig occupied by eco-terrorists.

Writing: Mission and NPC details, including intelligent enemy tactics and motives, are seeded with hooks and in-roads to provide players and GMs with unique experiences.

Art/Design: Wide landscape layout with four major content columns (three text columns, one overhead map illustration of the mission site). Black-on-white for most of the document, including a portrait of a key NPC; map is provided on a dark background in the main document, with a color-inverted version provided as a separate player handout image.

Usability: Consistently recognizable headings, borders, horizontal rules, and whitespace distinguish separate content sections, while bold and italicized text calls attention to important terms and information.

Concept: “Gort Phaserbekker, former front man for the mega-hit deathcore-noize band ACCESSORY TO INSANITY, has a special request for the PCs: kidnap the guy who replaced him. ACCESSORY TO INSANITY is playing a show at the “highly exclusive” Club Mint tomorrow night. Phaserbekker can get the PCs some tickets—aside from that, they’re on their own. He doesn’t give a shit how the job gets done: his only stipulation is that the target is returned alive.”

Content: A revenge mission to kidnap a musician who’s made his predecessor a has-been.

Writing: Packed full of details about goings-on at the club to provide a table with multiple sessions of fun while pursuing their target.

Art/Design: Wide two-page spread with a map of the club on the right, an illustration of a musician at the bottom, and several columns of text regarding the mission, the location, random events, NPC stats, and more.

Usability: Text is easily scannable and readable, with consistent presentation to ensure identification of desired info. 

Concept: “Masato Dvorak, a Virid Vipers crime lord, needs someone to take Mia Dvorak—his wife—out for the day. He instructs the PCs to bring Mia to the Kaytell Makers Proudly Presents: Fun!™ corpo-amusement park; their job is to keep Mia safe—and, perhaps more importantly, entertained—during their visit. Mia has had a few of these “outings” in the past, and she’s yet to have a caretaker survive. Word around the campfire is that her last one, Antwan, ended up ‘thrown off a building into a glass motherfuckin’ house. Since then, he’s kind of developed a speech impediment…’”

Content: The PCs get hired to babysit a crime lord’s daughter, and fun ensues.

Writing: Concise, informative details about the mission, NPCs, and relevant events to complicate matters.

Art/Design: Four columns of content across a wide one-page layout, with a map of the amusement park on the far right. An illustration of Mia and of roller skaters complements mission text. A player handout of the amusement park map is also included.

Usability: Consistent presentation–headings/labels, whitespace, and borders–makes it easy to identify and distinguish sections of content and important details (NPCs, stats, etc.).

Concept: “Cosmia Kowasaki, an AST Endless Seas researcher, had something stolen from her team: a data-fish with a heap of corporate secrets tucked away in its little chip-brain.”

Content: A recovery job that involves fishing for secrets at an upscale villa.  

Writing: Brief but vivid details are included to cover essential dimensions of job locations, NPCs, secrets, and key events as the mission unfolds.

Art/Design: A two-page spread with mission specifics in two columns on the left and an overhead map of the site and additional information, with an illustration of the data-fish, beneath it on the right.

Usability: Text layout is readable and easily navigable, and headings/labels are consistently presented to further improve identifying and locating desired info.

Concept: “You’re a self-surgery maniac, but more than that, you’re an artist. Your body is a canvas, and you gladly suffer for your work. Get rippin’.”

Content: A class for the self-improvement enthusiast who’s never quite satisfied with their work.

Writing: Brief but characterful class traits and mechanics.

Art/Design: Two-page spread with black/yellow/pink-scheme. Two tables are provided on the left side and an abstract illustration of a ripper junkie on the right, with brief class details laid over it at various points on the page. 

Usability: Class features are in mostly easy-to-recognize sections, although a few might get initially overlooked where they blend in a bit to the right-page image. Some text is quite small, and since class is provided as a PNG, text is not selectable (so no searching, copying/pasting, or screen reader compatibility).

Concept: “You’re losing your grip. You carry ghosts in your head, chatty artifacts of all that precious data you’ve shepherded from one client to another over the years. You really should find a new line of work, but fuck that. The biz don’t stop, and neither do you.”

Content: A class for the info jockey who dreams of room service, club sandwich, cold Mexican beer, and more–at least until it’s time to free up more space for data storage.

Writing: Brief descriptions of class features that pay homage to Johnny Mnemonic with a Cy-based flair.

Art/Design: Two sets of circles are the focal points for a two-page spread that includes class details and mechanics on the left and a stylized portrait illustration of a courier on the right.

Usability: Contrast is mostly strong, although a few fields may be difficult for some to read. Class is provided as a PNG, so text is not embedded (no searching or copying/pasting is available).

Concept: “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT is an introductory three-part CY_BORG adventure inspired by classic movies like Running Man and Judge Dredd (2012), wherein the player characters must ascend a crumbling apartment tower and take out its self-appointed gang-goon leader, Jinghai Soan. It's nonstop action and weirdness that's perfect for introducing new players into the setting and system!”

Content: A scenario for PCs to get intimately familiar with life in a high-rise habitat on lockdown in order to bring down the crime lord at its apex.

Writing: Tons of details about apartment residents, the building’s aesthetic, recent rumors, NPC stats, a map, and more.

Art/Design: White-on-black monospace text with red and yellow graffiti/handwritten headings and embellishments. Occasional borders help indicate the extent of a particular sidebar or table. Black-and-white map and portrait of Jinghai Soan are included.

Usability: Text is provided mostly in one- and two-column formats with occasional exceptions. While text contrast makes for easy reading, the text is not embedded, so no searching or copying/pasting is available.

Concept: “You hail from a world unknown to humanity, far beyond the outer bounds of the Terran solar system. All data projections point to planet Earth as the site of some great future calamity, one that will resonate throughout the entire universe—but what could it be, and why here? You’ve been stranded on Earth (what’s left of it, anyway) for a few months now, and so far, only one thing’s been made abundantly clear: this place is a shithole, and nobody’s coming to rescue you.”

Content: A class for the stranger in a strange land with no way to leave it.

Writing: Class details mix levity and bizarre sci-fi tropes for a unique class experience in a cyberpunk milieu.

Art/Design: Black-edged white text on black, pink, and gray with some green text accents. Class features are arranged around a central illustration of a visitor over a background pattern of criss-crossing X shapes.

Usability: Visually, this is a busy spread, which may make reading/scanning difficult for some, augmented by the lack of embedded text (so no searching or copying/pasting). Bold text for important info and labels consistently helps distinguish individual list items and content sections.