[Free RPG Day 2025] :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Two days ago, a terrorist cyber team was able to identify, isolate, and take control of an anomaly in cyberspace. An informant in the Tokyo Tangle has identified the team as belonging to the Ōgama marauders, a radical terrorist organization which has been frog-like yōkai who have been attacking civilian targets in the Megacity, likely in an attempt to destabilize the local government. The team’s target is the anomalous cyber Domain, BNZ4I-10, known to display cutting-edge or supernatural capacities with regard to data control. Now that Ōgama have control of BNZ4I-10, it has the ability to manipulate the flow of data throughout cyberspace. This includes the capacity to redirect data packets, including highly sensitive information sent from secure locations, into this anomalous Domain. With this, their cyber team has unchecked reach and significant advantage in terms of access to communication.

Although the location of the physical server hosting this Domain cannot be determined, but communications access has been gained. You will be placed in Harness and projected into the Domain’s virtual representation. Your objective is to infiltrate and take over BNZ4I-10, eradicate Ōgama presence and code, and transfer control to Section 7. As a secondary objective, identify and secure any tech or artifacts used by Ōgama operatives to control or access the server.

Mission begins.

This is the set-up for :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game, a quick-start for :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG, published by the Son of Oak Game Studio, best known for City of Mist, the Pulp Noir, Urban Fantasy storytelling game. It is a narrative roleplaying game set some time during the next century in which the Player Characters are inhabitants of a dystopian Megacity who make a living undertaking dangerous jobs that their employers want temporary, deniable assets for. Typical tasks include hijacking, extraction, procurement, security sweeps, and so on. More recently, the Player Characters have made contact with something inexplicable, a legend or a Mythos that they hitherto only thought to be fiction, but is currently proving to be actually real. Almost as if it was out of a book of myths and legends, they find themselves capable of warping reality in a way that can only be described as magic! It uses a variant of the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics, called the ‘Mist Engine’ and the :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game includes a short strike mission, ‘BNZ4I-10 Cyber Anomaly’, that can be played through in a single session with the three pre-generated Player Characters provided.

A Player Character in :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG is defined by four sets of themed Tags. These Themes vary, but can include Esoterica, Expertise, Affiliation, Assets, Artefact, Personality, and more. Each Theme set contains five Tags which can be used as a ‘Power Tag’ or a ‘Weakness Tag’. For example, the Wilson has the Tags of ‘Oni Strength’, ‘Demonic Durability’, ‘Rapid Regeneration’, ‘Acute Sense of Smell’, ‘Muscular Overgrowth’, and ‘Easily Angered’ for his Oni Mask Theme. A Theme also has background details that develop and explain who the character is. Each Player Character has a set of items which can be used as Tags too.

The three Player Characters in the :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game are ‘Genji’, a grizzled detective working for the Bureau of Onmyu, a secret government organisation that that tracks Mytho-related activities that are a threat to Tokyo and the rest of Japan; ‘Unagi’ is a scavenger and urban explorer looking for her kid sister who has also received the boon of Unagi Hime, the Eel princess; and ‘Wilson’ is a gaijin ronin, an ex-soldier turned mercenary armed with a cutting edge rail gun, who wears an Oni mask which gives strength and endurance. Each Theme comes with some colour text which gives it and the Player Character some context. Lastly, each of the three pre-generated Player Characters comes on a double-sided A3-size sheet, with a full illustration on one side and the full stats and details on the other, including an explanation of the roleplaying game’s core mechanic.

Mechanically, to have his character attempt a task a player rolls two six-sided dice. If the result is ten or more, the Player Character succeeds without Consequences; if it is seven to nine, he succeeds, but suffers Consequences; and if six or less, the Player Character fails and suffers the Consequences. To the roll, the player adds as many Power Tags as he can and which are appropriate, but has to deduct any Weakness Tags that apply. The resulting value is the Player Character’s Power. This can be spent on various Effects—Attack, Influence, Boost, Create, and Restore. They can also be applied to Challenges and Threats in an attempt to overcome them. Each Challenge or Threat has a rating or a ‘Limit’, for example, to get past an encampment of bandits with two men on watch, the Limits might be ‘stealth: 2’ and ‘wounded: 3’. In the first example, the Player Characters would apply the Effects from a stealth-related Tag to exceed the Limit, whilst in the second, the Effects from an attack-type Tag would be used. This can be done over multiple attempts with the Effects stacking each time, but if successful will change the status of a Challenge or Threat. Thus, the ‘stealth: 2’ Limit changes to ‘evaded-2’ and the ‘wounded: 3’ Limit to ‘wounded-3’.

However, there are ramifications if a Challenge or Threat is not dealt with succinctly or is even ignored. The Narrator can apply Consequences. This might be something as straightforward as ‘bleeding-3’ for a wound, ‘burning-1’ from a fire, or ‘lost-4’ if in darkness, but Limits themselves could change. For example, the Limits for the bandits could change to ‘hunted: 3’ and ‘wounded: 4’, now that the Player Characters failed to get past the encampment. The :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game includes a list of possible Effects, advice on running the roleplaying game, and possible Challenges, Threats, and Consequences that the Player Characters might face and suffer.

The adventure itself, ‘BNZ4I-10 Cyber Anomaly’ is set within cyberspace into which each Player Character and his abilities are projected, a process known as Harnessing. What this means is that whilst what is actually happening is that lines of code are running and interacting with each other, they are visualised and anything a Player Character could do in meatspace, he can do in the virtual space too and it will look exactly what it does in the real world. BNZ4I-10 is a ‘thin place’, a place where the mythic and the real meet. BNZ4I-10 actually looks like a shrine, complete with several pagodas, a bathhouse, and a pond. These locations are not mapped out in detail, but they do not need to be. Both these locations and the Ōgama marauder threats are described in detail enough that the Master of Ceremonies—as the Game Master is known in :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG—will handle how they react to the actions of the Player Characters. The scenario be played as is, but options explore what might happen if the Player Characters are betrayed by their employer or they betray their employer.

Physically, the :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game is well presented. The artwork is good and the writing decent. All three Player Character sheets come separate from the main book and there is even a sheet of Tracking Cards to cut and use to keep track of Effects being applied to Threats and Challenges and Limits being reduced.

If the :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game is lacking anything, it is an example of play or the rules in play. Without either, it is not quite as easy to grasp as it could have been, presenting more of a challenge to learn for anyone new to roleplaying or new to the narrative style of play employed in :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG. However, for the experienced Narrator or the Narrator willing to grasp its slightly different rules, the :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG Demo Game is a solid, engaging introduction to :Otherscape – The Mythic-Cyberpunk RPG, with an exciting strike mission that puts the Player Characters in the heat of the action.