Cyberblood Origins
Like many who got into the table-top role-playing scene in the late 2000s, I was enthralled by RPG stories and content from the internet. The web series Counter Monkey chronicled both individual tales of adventure and tomfoolery and also of systems, lore, gameplay mechanics, and character design. After viewing a particular episode of the series that discussed adventures set in a cyberpunk setting, I was hooked on the idea.
For the next 7 years, I worked on CyberBlood as a hobby. Designing the world’s gameplay, character classes, and lore one chunk at a time. Rewiring the systems, demolishing them, and rebuilding them from scratch. My budget was 0, but my time limit was infinite. The game was never intended to see the light of day. It was a hobby. I genuinely believed that while I was proud of what I was making, it was a pastime and nothing more. Nobody else would be interested in playing an RPG that I wrote…
One very rough alpha test and years later, the world stopped. 2020. A very cyberpunk-sounding year, but unfortunately, our doomsday wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the kinds I was writing about. After losing my job, being threatened by my university, and being isolated from everyone I loved, I made the decision to reach out to people online.
I was desperate for human connection. But I wasn’t alone. As it turned out, even before the lockdown DnD Beyond and other web-based RPG tools had begun fostering vast communities of players who loved RPGs and were always hungry for something new.
The massive success of DnD-fueled media like Netflix’s Stranger Things and Critical Role only bolstered this interest. And finally, with the launch of the ill-fated Cyberpunk 2077, the demand and interest in sci-fi and cyberpunk systems were at a fever pitch. I began play-testing in 2020, entirely online.
CyberBlood is launching on Kickstarter 2023. With a team of talented artists working hard to bring the game to life and produce a book that I truly believe is the best cyberpunk RPG on the market. Detailed but flexible. Easy to learn gameplay, but with deep world building 10 years in the making.
CyberBlood is 100% a labor of love, and I know that when you pick up the player’s guide and jump into a game with your fellow cyberpunks, you will see a world of possibilities open up before you.
If you want to be a part of the CyberBlood story, consider a donation on Kofi and tell your friends about the game! Because for this mission, you’re going to need backup!
-Macro
To my delight, not only was the game a big hit among the testers, but it was also a surprisingly robust system. A far cry from the easily broken balance of the alpha-test years prior. By 2022, the game had been reshaped. It was more solid, more developed and the rules were sensible and consistent.
Support from Twitter and other online communities pushed me to put the project into active development and I began rewriting the entire document into a more professional format and looking for artists.
