Hook Line & Cyb3r is a go-fish powered cyberpunk heist ttrpg that's about things going wrong, alliances fracturing, and other messy drama in a chrome-and-synth future.
It's narrative-first and maybe also play-to-lose, but it plays extremely smoothly and is easy to teach, and should be an absolute hit with groups that already play games like Fiasco.
Hook Line's PDF is 20 pages, with a freeware-user-guide aesthetic that fits the source material. The contents are well organized and easy to read, the TOC is hyperlinked, and there's even some photobashed art that blends in perfectly.
The setting is simply the genre, for the most part. You could use the specific terminology of the Sprawl trilogy, or Shadowrun, or Cyberpunk 2077 without massively changing things.
The mechanics, however, are the meat of this engine. You play by playing Go Fish, but each card is an essential component of a cyberpunk heist. Different suits are different kinds of components, and every book (four of a kind) that you make will have one of each suit, so you'll always have one of each component in your heist.
Poaching cards from other players' hands adds complications to jobs, and it can also mean stealing the whole job from them if you use their card to finish your book.
Character creation is done by drawing cards and comparing them against a few simple tables. Likewise, each card has tables to compare it against, and every cell of every table is good, flavorful, broad, and in-genre.
Overall, this is probably one of my favorite oneshot systems, and definitely one of my favorite oneshot storygames. If you like cyberpunk, messy characters, friendly pvp, and card-based storytelling, you need to give this a try.
Minor Issues And Suggestions:
-I think it might be worthwhile to try having That One Job take place in the future, i.e. your game is working towards it, and it's the last job your characters go on before the game ends.
this game is an absolute blast. it's full of wacky, genre-savvy cyberpunk, and uses tables in ways i've never imagined. most games give you a few bricks and rules for which you can combine—this one gives you a whole lego set and instructions, and asks you to make-believe what it all means. it's so easy to pick up and play, check it out!!
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Hook Line & Cyb3r is a go-fish powered cyberpunk heist ttrpg that's about things going wrong, alliances fracturing, and other messy drama in a chrome-and-synth future.
It's narrative-first and maybe also play-to-lose, but it plays extremely smoothly and is easy to teach, and should be an absolute hit with groups that already play games like Fiasco.
Hook Line's PDF is 20 pages, with a freeware-user-guide aesthetic that fits the source material. The contents are well organized and easy to read, the TOC is hyperlinked, and there's even some photobashed art that blends in perfectly.
The setting is simply the genre, for the most part. You could use the specific terminology of the Sprawl trilogy, or Shadowrun, or Cyberpunk 2077 without massively changing things.
The mechanics, however, are the meat of this engine. You play by playing Go Fish, but each card is an essential component of a cyberpunk heist. Different suits are different kinds of components, and every book (four of a kind) that you make will have one of each suit, so you'll always have one of each component in your heist.
Poaching cards from other players' hands adds complications to jobs, and it can also mean stealing the whole job from them if you use their card to finish your book.
Character creation is done by drawing cards and comparing them against a few simple tables. Likewise, each card has tables to compare it against, and every cell of every table is good, flavorful, broad, and in-genre.
Overall, this is probably one of my favorite oneshot systems, and definitely one of my favorite oneshot storygames. If you like cyberpunk, messy characters, friendly pvp, and card-based storytelling, you need to give this a try.
Minor Issues And Suggestions:
-I think it might be worthwhile to try having That One Job take place in the future, i.e. your game is working towards it, and it's the last job your characters go on before the game ends.
this game is an absolute blast. it's full of wacky, genre-savvy cyberpunk, and uses tables in ways i've never imagined. most games give you a few bricks and rules for which you can combine—this one gives you a whole lego set and instructions, and asks you to make-believe what it all means. it's so easy to pick up and play, check it out!!