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REVIEWS
Mark J: I love the setting for this, and the game mechanic is easy and straight-forward. I enjoy crunchy games, too, but we used Zaibatsu for a 4-hour one-shot. By strategically selecting portions of the book to print, I was able to put together materials that the players could use to make their characters and play without prior knowledge of the game. PC generation took about 20 minutes. The game went great!
READ MORE Verified Purchaser: I like what I see so far. 1) Nice understated layout that is clear and easy to read. 2) Clearly identifies what its about, its source inspirations, how it relates to Cepheus and Hostile and how to use it. 3) Gets straight to the point with the characters and how to generate them. Provides the same unlovely mix of lowlifes and losers as the source material does. And yet also provides good guidance on how the corporate/cyberpunk culture works, and how to play those characters. 4) Like the cut down mechanics to focus on the action. And appreciate the succinct explanation as to why. And also appreciate that as a slimmed down version of Cepheus, as much detail from that can be re-introduced - as I like. I also think its a great example of how to focus on a setting and a genre and generate a game that delivers that without going over the top with detail or mechanics. The way in which the world and slimmed down mechanics are presented is a model for any similar effort, I think. And this is at page 117 (so far read) out of 220. I think only play will deliver the true verdict, but so far I like it. And I can see other uses for the material. I already have a couple of cyberpunk/corporate/japanese inspired worlds lurking in my current 2d6 SF campaign that will benefit hugely from this. |
A complete game set within the HOSTILE universe, Zaibatsu is a cyberpunk roleplaying game based on the Cepheus Engine and other Classic 2D6 SF RPGs. Colour Interior.
As the street soldiers of the world’s most powerful corporations (the Japanese zaibatsu) you become expendable and deniable employees fighting for profits, power and your lives. You’ve been recruited from the dark and murky Japanese underworld to carry out illegal terrorist activities on behalf of that employer and have one foot in the stylish corporate-minded boardrooms of the zaibatsu, and one foot in the filth and squalor of the criminal underworld. Hired by duty-bound executives who must at all times remain respectable, the player characters are modern street samurai, urban warriors doing the disreputable things that no corporate executive could ever admit to. All set in Gibson’s futureworld: Tokyo gone global. Tokyo. The world’s capital, largest, most high-tech, most happening city on Earth. Zaibatsu is a return to the early days of cyberpunk, when William Gibson’s Neuromancer was new and fresh, and when Japan looked to become the centre of a new, high-tech dystopian future. Altered Carbon, Bladerunner 2049 … cyberpunk is not going away… In this game you will find:
Click here for FILLABLE CHARACTER SHEETS - From Polyhedral Nonsense
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