It's time to introduce a new regular feature for the blog, called Retro-cover Wednesdays. Basically I plan to once a week post an old cover from my roleplaying past, along with a few musings that it inspires. Hopefully it'll be entertaining for all and keep my content at least a little more regular.
So the first cover I wanted to write about was from an old Cyberpunk 2020 supplement called Maximum Metal: High-Powered Ordinance for Cyberpunk 2020. As I've mentioned before, Cyberpunk 2020 was my first roleplaying game, so unlike many of you who were calculating THACO and figuring out the damage of a magic missle as a young kid, I was working out the SP of Kevlar skinweave against a Baretta 9mm. I need to write a longer post about this game that I love, but suffice to say these days it really hits those nostalgia buttons for me.
Maximum Metal dates from 1993 and has rules and stats for military vehicles and weapons. The material in this book runs the gambit from the realtively mundane (motorbikes, trucks and tanks) to the more exotic (battle zeppelins and powered armour). While the weapons and vehicles discussed are high powered, they are well supported with some pretty sound rules, and GMs are provided with a heavy caveat that this material is not to be used lightly.
While Maximum Metal has attracted some criticism for going away from the gritty, urban setting of the source material, there was always a slight thrill if during a game our GM picked it up and started looking through it, as it was a signal to us that sh*t was about to get real. The powered armour seemed particularly cool to us as a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds, though in hindsight the cheese does seem pretty evident.
If I were ever to run a Cyberpunk game again (which is, sadly, highly unlikely), I would keep Maximum Metal in my GM's arsenal. Perhaps it would never seen the light of day in the game, but, like any other deterrent, it would be a good thing to have on hand for unwise player decisions.
Awesome idea for a series of posts. I just read through 2020 last week, but the only nostalgia I got was for wanting to run a game and never managing to do so...
ReplyDeleteThanks Morge. Every six months or so I tend to get some of my Cyberpunk books out and look through them, before sighing and putting them back on the shelf. It's pretty dated, so would take a bit to get back into it. One day maybe...
ReplyDeleteA couple of bright spots is that there are some modern systems adatpting the source material. Inferace Zero for Savage World is one that looks good, and Hamish is hacking Apocalypse World to make a cyberpunk game.
CP 2020 is one of the best games ever written. It's also quite flexible and can handle different sci-fi genres. Just have a look at the Deep Space supplement; therein you will find rules for spaceships, space stations, hazards of space travel etc. all in easy-to-use rules; AND one of the simplest and accurate space combat systems.
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