Hopes and Dreams

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the future of Cyberpunk Legends, because I love the game as it exists… but to me this is the beginning, not the end.

I think we’ve achieved step one: make an adventure card game that’s easy to hop into, that gives you campaign play and feels just a little bit like you’re playing a tabletop RPG. But I’m really excited about step two and step three.

Step two is to develop the system and get enough cards out there that anyone can start making their own adventures, rather than the game being limited to the adventures we create.

Step three? Really support the roguelike mode, so it can allow people to push the limits of deckbuilding and even enable us to do things like limited play and create the world’s first major co-op tournament scene.

So how do we do this? With your indulgence. It’ll be a year between when we hit retail and when this all even begins to come together. I’m going to need a lot of you to playtest, to give feedback… and to help remind people that we’re just a bunch of human beings when we screw up.

But I also have a plan ; )

Building Your Own Adventures

How do we create a system that allows anyone to build their own Cyberpunk Legends adventures? First, we need to release a lot more cards. I’ve got these designed, but these cards need to exist outside the campaign/scenarios. Why? Because we need to provide you with the basic Cyberpunk verbs; “Lose a Tail”, “Gunfight”, “Hack the Mainframe”. We also need to provide you with a wide list of enemies, locations and narrative starting points.

We’ll have to tokenize a lot of stuff and provide you with cards that let you transform any card into a choice (i.e. ways to allow you to say “if you succeeded at this puzzle, draw the next card, otherwise draw the following card” without us having any idea what you might choose for those following cards). We’ll also have to provide you with player cards and reward cards that allow your play group to deal with any situation, rather than just what we’ve got in the campaigns.

Next, we’re going to have to randomize it and put it in boosters. And I know for some of you you’re probably screaming right now, but there’s a bunch of reasons for this. 

1. We tested giving the 400 cards we currently have designed for this to people and then just said “make stuff”. Even the seasoned designers we handed them to rarely came back with anything.
   
   Then we handed people 15 cards and said, modify one of the scenarios to be slightly cooler or harder for your play group, and the number of people who did it went through the roof. Then we handed those people a bunch more sets of 15 cards and said modify decks any way you want or build your own thing… and way more people built their own thing.
   
   
2. I want to be able to pull stuff out of rotation if we (inevitably) make something absolutely monstrous.
   
   
3. I don’t want the entry point to trying your hand at modding or GMing to be $100, which it would have to be if we were to just sell you the whole set at once.
   
   
4. I don’t actually know how many copies of “Guards” you’re going to need for your particular adventure. If I sell you the full set of 400 cards for $100 but you need 12 copies of “Guards” to do what you want to do… do you have to buy the whole thing 12 times? That seems wrong.
   
   
5. Finally, since I’m trying to always be open here: this is going to be expensive for us to build and to maintain. It means bringing on more staff than we have now.
   
   So, in full candor, I think we need the people who absolutely love this and want to create the most complex and long running campaigns to be able to spend whatever they want on it to make this work. And yes, I know the financial burden of every TTRPG falls on the GMs (we spend $300 on books while everyone else buys the player’s guide), and I know I'm doing the same here. But since players are going to be picking up packs for the player cards, I'm hoping people hand any scenario stuff to their friendly local GM! 

Once we have that we have to give you the ability to create your own story cards. Not proxying them up - though we 100% don’t mind you doing this - but giving you a way to get them printed out on real card stock with the official card backs so they match everything else in the scenario you’re building for your friends.

We’re working on getting this tech sorted out now. On a technical side, I think we could probably get a web widget that lets you do this up and running in a couple of months given where we are now. But… 

The hardest part is, honestly, the cost. Card printing is one of those things where economies of scale come in in a huge way. Like an absurd way. Once you’re printing a million of a card, that card might cost you a cent. But to print, pack and ship a single, bespoke card —a card that will never be printed again—is a couple of bucks.

Charging $15 for a single card seems ludicrous to me (MTG Collector’s Boosters what..?) so we have to find a biz-dev solution. Best I can say here is: “Workin’ on it.”

But, if we can get that piece sorted, we really could let you make whatever adventures you want for your crew.

Roguelikes and the Co-Op Tournament Scene

In this post, I explained Gauntlet Mode. It’s a mode that turns Cyberpunk Legends from a series of set narrative driven adventures to a full on roguelike brawl. Well the secret about that mode? It’s waaaaaaaaaaay cooler with more cards.

What you’re going to get in the core box makes for a fine Gauntlet. But let me tell you where it’s going and all the things I’m playing with on my side. 

First is deckbuilding and “cube”.

Gauntlet exists in 3 parts.

1. Your Player Decks
2. The deck of Obstacles you’re going to face
3. The deck of upgrades you’re going get along the way

Each of these is craftable!

If we can get the “build your own adventure” mode out there, there will be enough cards for people to really create not only their player decks but to really customize the rewards and the runs they want to do.

You want to really min-max, push yourself to the limit and see if you can still survive, to make the Adam Smasher, MaxTac meatgrinder and see if you and your friends can put together awesome enough decks and coordinate well enough to be legends? Go nuts.

You want something not too taxing for group game night? No problem, you can build that.

You want to go on Bozo hunt but tell your players that nobody gets to use cards with the letter L? Sure, who are we to stop you.

Then there's tournaments. You want to come to a tournament with your friends? Crack out your best decks and face a Gauntlet with cards we made specifically for the event? LET’S GO! (Yes…Gencon in a year or two is going to be diabolical).

And I love the idea of what plays out when you stop limiting co-op to being something you only ever get to do with a few friends in the confines of your home:

Practice as a team or come to your local game store, find a group to play with and make some new friends. Teach new players and pass along the love of the game or have an excuse to push the game to it's limits and see how far you and your friends can take it.

But more than that, there’s something I really want to do, both for local game stores and because it’s the type of game I love… and that’s Limited.

I’m a Limited player at heart. Sealed and draft are my thing.

What I don't like about limited is how much it costs...but I think we have a way make it affordable. 

That would take another 1000 words though so that's probably a blog post for another time.

It's enough to say that I hope we can let you all create your own adventures and that, in time, I hope I can turn our roguelike mode from a secondary feature into an incredible way to have a game night out with your friends.

These are lofty ambitions. Ones I don’t know if we can realize, but with your patience and your indulgence for the missteps we make along the way, we just might.

—JP

Cyberpunk Legends is now LIVE on Kickstarter. Reserve your copy now.