(current year)
A downloadable RPG
(current year) is a simple system (2d10 rolls, set damages, set DCs) for creating people and an area to play a game in, and then playing the game. The system also comes with a number of tables to roll on in order to generate people, most of which are system-agnostic and can be used to generate characters for other games in modern settings.
A surveillance and infrastructure system known as OPTICON has been established in cities and countries around the world, to the delight of governments and corporations, and the relative indifference of the populace. You play as normal people given the ability to access OPTICON and the devices connected to it by a mysterious figure known as [i].
The game also comes with a character sheet (in the form of a fillable pdf).
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Development log
- Update (7/1/2021)Jul 02, 2021
- Update (6/4/2021)Jun 04, 2021
- Update (6/1/2021)Jun 01, 2021
Comments
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3 Years old, not really expecting an update but... White on black is nice for that hacker aesthetic, but not exactly printer friendly.
Extremely fair. I'll upload a printer friendly version at my earliest convenience.
You are awesome!
Current Year is a near-future cyberpunk rpg largely focused on data management and surveillance.
It's 33 pages, with a clean, readable layout but a bit of a monotonous feel. That feeling might be intentional, as the overall atmosphere of the game is serious and technical.
Setting-wise, the game begins with a tech company, Moirai, gaining more or less total market saturation with its data monitoring program, OPTICON. OPTICON gathers and collates personal data from anyone with a device in sort of the same way companies and organizations already do, but it's much more centralized---making for sort of a softer, easier to disrupt dystopia than our current one.
Simply put, OPTICON has vulnerabilities, and the PCs learn about them. This is the 'They Live' style hook to most games of Current Year.
Setting-wise, Current Day doesn't define much outside of its basic premise. It does, however, give you a toolkit for building your own corner of the setting. This is neat and helps encourage a 'shared universe' kind of situation, where multiple groups can play Current Year independently and still have all of their stories be canon.
The game system itself has some good crunch to it, with attributes and skills and random roll tables as well as a point-based character creation. Attributes have mechanical meaning, and there's skill trees and a money system as well.
Current Year's core dice mechanic is a 2d10 roll in the style of PbtA. Most of the time, you'll be succeeding with a complication. Sometimes you'll succeed without a complication. If you're got points invested in your relevant attribute, you'll rarely get a straight failure, but scoring failures is how you improve your stats.
Honestly, it's simple, flexible, easy to use, and it encourages taking risks and growing. It's a good game engine.
Overall, Current Day has an interesting set-up and a cool engine---and it turns both of these over to you almost immediately and tells you to do what you will with them. If your group likes worldbuilding, if you like a bit of crunch, if you like modern day tech thrillers, I strongly recommend this. You'll have a good time.
Minor Issues:
-The idea of skills and risks is introduced twice without a specific pointer to the skills section. I'm not sure everyone will get tripped up here, but I did both times.
-+$10,000 for black market price markup feels a little weird in some cases. Like for $10,050 brass knuckles. Maybe 10x price?