This is the set-up for The Gaia Complex – A Game of Flesh and Wires, a Cyberpunk roleplaying game of street violence, espionage, vampiric uprisings, and overzealous A.I. governance, published by Hansor Publishing. It feels like a very traditional Cyberpunk roleplaying game, though with an obvious European bias, and with the oddity of the addition of the supernatural in the form of Vampires and Ferals. Of course, this is not the first time that Vampires and Cyberpunk have been brought together. Night’s Edge, published by Dream Pod 9 and Ianus Publications in 1993, brought vampires to Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. from R. Talsorian Games Inc.. That though was an extra option, whereas here in The Gaia Complex, vampires are part of the setting and they add an element of the supernatural and horror to the fringes of that setting. In comparison, their inclusion is not as radical an addition to the Cyberpunk genre as fantasy is ShadowRun. Plus, they are not available as a Player Character options and should a vampire turn a Player Character, he becomes an NPC. It is possible to play a Feral though. They are not as physically strong as the average human, they have allied companion beasts, and their blood is actually poisonous to Vampires!
A Player Character in The Gaia Complex is Merc. He is either a Human or a Feral, and will have a Character Role. The ten Character Roles are Operator, Core Hacker, Bio Hacker, Paramed, Cyberdoc, MilTech, Mech, Tech Trader, Data Dealer, and Handler. Each Character Role sets a Player Character’s Favoured Stats, Core Skills, Starting Items, and a Trait, the latter, a special ability which kicks in under certain circumstances. For example, the Operator has the Favoured Stats of Brawn, Guts, and Reflexes; Core Skills of Firearms, Melee Weapons, Strategy, and Tracking; a Starting Item of a firearm or melee weapon; and the Trait of ‘Combat Readiness’, which grants an Operator a bonus to initiative, able to identity threats and respond to them faster. The Handler has the Favoured Stats of Allure and Perception; Core Skills of Animal Handling, Awareness, Meld, and Tracking; a Starting Item of an animal companion; and the Trait of ‘Feral Mind’, which represents the Feral’s honed mind and senses with a modifier to Awareness skill tests and the capacity to spend Grit to automatically pass a Meild skill test. The Player Character has seven stats—Brawn, Reflexes, Guts, Brains, Allure, and Perception—each rated between one and ten and each having six associated skills. Skills do not have a rating; a Player Character either has the skill or not. The seventh stat is Grit, which is a pool of points that can be spent to ensure success during play. A Player Character also a Disconnect score, which measures his biological functions versus the amount of cyberware he has installed.
Creating a Player Character is a matter of selecting a Character Role and applying its bonuses, dividing twenty-five points between the stats, and picking twelve skills in addition to those granted by the Character Role. This gives him a total of sixteen skills and two of them must be Specialisations. Lastly, the Player Character receives some clothing, somewhere to live, enough food to last a week, and a budget to spend on starting equipment and cybernetics. The process is quite straightforward; the most complicated part being making the choices in terms of equipment and cybernetics.
Name: Ottilie Harsholm
Character Role: Core Hacker
Trait: Digital Life
STATS
Brawn 3 (Unarmed Combat)
Reflexes 6 (Firearms, Pilot Drone, Stealth)
Guts 5 (Gambling, Streetwise)
Brains 8 (Electronics, Hacking, Mechanical, Programming)
Allure 4 (Barter, Deceive, Persuasion)
Perception 5 (Awareness, Lock Pick, Surveillance)
Grit 4
HIT POINTS
Endurance 9 Pressure 24
Morale 10 Disconnect 78
CYBERWARE
NVI ProKL Neural Frame, NVI Flashline Neural Rig, THD Drone Remote, DrillBit Mk.2, Transplant
Mechanically, The Gaia Complex uses what it calls the 12.3 System. To have a Player Character undertake an action, the appropriate Stat is first compared against the difficulty, ranging from one for very easy to almost impossible for eleven. If the appropriate Stat is equal to, or less than, the difficulty, the Player Character automatically succeeds and no roll is required. If a roll is required, the player rolls two twelve-sided dice and compares the result against the Stat. A success is generated if the result is equal to, or less than, the Stat.
If the Player Character has the appropriate skill, only one Success is required, but if the Player Character does not have the skill, a Success is required on both dice. If the task is still difficult, the Game Master can also apply a Complexity Modifier to the roll. If the skill is marked as a specialisation, a player can reroll any single die that did not roll a twelve. Grit can be spent to reduce the result rolled, each point spent, reducing the result on both die by one for each point spent—though not if a twelve was rolled. If the test is failed and either die rolled a twelve, the result is a critical failure. This can result in the loss of Endurance or Morale, inability to undertake the task again, gaining the wrong information, equipment failing, and so on.
Combat uses the same mechanics. Initiative is a simple roll of one die plus Reflexes or Perception and during each three second Combat Round, a combatant can perform one action—either Movement, Supporting, Close Combat Attack, or Ranged Attack. Any attack action requires a successful roll, again against the appropriate Stat. However, there is a greater range of Complexity Modifiers which can apply to the actual roll. For example, in close combat, charging adds a +1 Complexity Modifier and a +2 Complexity Modifier is added if the target is actively dodging, whereas in ranged combat, an aimed shot grants a -1 Complexity Modifier, a snapshot adds a +1 Complexity Modifier, and cover adds a variable Complexity Modifier depending upon how heavy it is. Burst allows a single damage die for the gun to be rerolled, any result of an eleven becomes a twelve, whilst suppressive fire applies a -1 Complexity Modifier, all damage dice to be rerolled, and any result of ten or eleven becomes a twelve. Each weapon has its own profile in terms of damage and effect, as well as background. A Player does need to keep track of how much ammunition has been used.
In terms of Hit Points, a Player Character has both Endurance and Pressure. Endurance represents his physical health and Pressure his mental health. Weapons inflict Endurance damage, typically 3d3+1 for a handgun, whilst attacks from programs in the Core or some
vampire abilities reduce Pressure. There are serious side effects if either Endurance or Pressure are reduced to five or less and if Endurance is reduced to zero, the Player Character is dead, and if Pressure reduced to zero, the Player Character is either brain dead or insane. There are also EMP weapons that can affect electronics and cybernetics. Armour will Endurance damage by a random amount, in some cases can be stacked, and optionally, can be damaged when it stops incoming blows. Other optional rules allow for knockdowns, hit locations, bleeding, and morale. Overall, the combat system is brutal.
As a Cyberpunk roleplaying game, The Gaia Complex includes a wide range of cyberware. Cyberarms and legs with storage comparts, magnetic plates, pop-up weapons, toolmate and TASER fingers; cybereyes with X-ray scanners, UV options, and targeting systems; cyberears with improved hearing range; cyberjaws with lockjaws and sharpened canines; titanium ribs and spinal replacement; neural frames and rigs for accessing the Core, storing data safely, and operating drones remotely; and more. Bioware options add improved hearts and lungs, whilst other implants include nasal filters, chip ports, and cable jacks, and exo-skeletons have their options. Many of the items of cyberware are available from legitimate CyberDocs where the newly installed devices will be legally recorded and also from backstreet CyberDocs who install ‘Hackjob’ versions of the devices, as functional, but often clunkier and more obvious, though without it being reported to the authorities. Either way, installing any device reduces the Player Character’s Disconnect. This starts out typically at about ninety, but is reduced for each item or upgrade. When Disconnect drops below fifty, the Player Character begins to suffer deleterious effects. ‘Hackjob’ versions tend to incur a greater Disconnect loss than legitimate versions.
The treatment of Hacking in The Gaia Complex is kept surprisingly short, just four pages long. Physically, it requires a Hacking Rig, Neural Frame, or Jack sockets and leads, and access can be found all across the city. Mechanically, it uses the Hacking skill and asks the player to define the objectives and the Game Master the number of layers of security that a hacker must penetrate or bypass to find the data he wants, access the permissions he wants, or plant the data he wants. The Game Master places countermeasures, such as a Data Wall, Cortex Trap, or Watch Dog, in these layers as challenges and threats that the Hacker has to overcome. All of this is played out in abstract fashion rather than mapping it necessarily, primarily relying on roleplaying to handle the narrative. The confrontations and encounters in the Core take roughly two to three seconds each, so that a Hacking attempt can be run alongside combat, although the Hacker can only focus on the attempt and finds it difficult to communicate.
Bio Hacking is treated in a similar fashion and length. Where Hacking involves electronically breaking into data systems and servers, Bio Hacking involves breaking into someone else’s mind, whether through the Core and into his Neural Frame or by directly jacking into the target’s systems via a port. Once inside, instead of experiencing the consensual network of neon and structure of the Core, the Bio Hacker finds himself in a void dotted with colourful nodes representing the target’s memories and the functions of his Neural Frame. It is extremely disorientating as the Bio Hacker constantly feels as if he is falling in a loop over and over, and it takes some getting used to. However, whilst in the target’s mind, the Bio Hacker can do a number of things. One is to steal desires, knowledge, memories, and secrets from the target, another is to plant thoughts, and even completely dominate the target to place them in forced servitude. As with Hacking, Bio Hacking is to be run in an abstract fashion, emphasising roleplaying with the Game Master setting up Bio Hacking Countermeasures for the Player Character to overcome.
As you would expect, The Gaia Complex includes an extensive list of arms, accessories, armour, clothing, hacking gear and accessories and programs, drones, accommodation and property, and more. Of course, it adds a range of animals for the Ferals’ Meld ability.
The non-Cyberpunk aspects of the setting of New Europe get their own sections, detailing in turn the world and cultures of the Ferals and the Vampires. Ferals have spent much of history as loners, drifters, and outsiders, and for the most part, still do in 2119. They simple lives, tend to avoid the use of cyberware, and when they do become Mercs, often follow their affinity for and love of animals to act against Sephron Corp, wanting to free the animals it clones. Feral culture continues to be street-based, the most notable organisation being the Circadian Network which operates throughout New Europe, managing a hidden surveillance and data trafficking network. Vampires, being non-human, receive more mechanical detail. What happens if someone is turned and becomes a Vampire, the special abilities that they can gain such as Deathtouch, Exsanguinate, Regeneration, Telekinesis, and Telepathy, and the rules of their survival, as well as their leading figures and corporations, like the Un-Set Corp; the vampire-operated investment firm, and Belvoit Media, a human/vampire co-run media firm specialising in urban advertisements.
There are details too, of the various corporations operating in New Europe, and in the wider world, New Europe and the other metropolises. Here there are descriptions of each of the districts of New Europe, all of the city or country sized, giving a bit of flavour and background so that the Game Master has reason to get her Player Characters there and feel enough to describe it to her players. Less useful are the descriptions of the other ten metropolises around the world since environmental effects have limited contact and travel between them for decades. Although the metropolises do feel reminiscent of the world of Judge Dredd from the pages of 2000 AD, their inclusion does give the Game Master a greater feel for the world. More useful perhaps is the information on the major corporations operating in New Europe as they provide at least a set of potential employers and targets.
There is decent, if brief, advice for the Game Master along with three data seeds—extended plot outlines—and good advice on inclusivity and safety. However, the last fifteen pages of The Gaia Complex is devoted to ‘The Truth Behind The Screen’. This gives the real history of the future of New Europe, shifting the setting in a radically unexpected direction and potentially changing what the roleplaying game setting purports to be. It includes an actual timeline that encompasses everything, which is slightly annoying because there is no timeline without those changes earlier in the book for the players’ benefit. As welcome as this new and expanded background and timeline are, it is of limited use. The problem is that there is no accompanying advice on how to use this extra timeline and background details, on how to bring it to the attention of the Player Characters, and how they might learn of it, and what they might do if they learn of it. So, at best, the Game Master can run the setting as is, as a more or less straight cyberpunk roleplaying game, but with supernatural elements, and perhaps begin work in the esoteric elements of the deeper background if she wants to and is confident enough to do so. Either that or wait for a supplement that brings it into play, because otherwise, the secret background is interesting, but just not yet relevant on the strength of the core rulebook alone.
Physically, The Gaia Complex is well presented. The artwork is excellent, but the cartography is serviceable at best and the book is slightly overwritten in parts. Every chapter is prefaced with a piece of colour fiction that helps to bring the setting to life.
The Gaia Complex – A Game of Flesh and Wires is a surprisingly light roleplaying game for the Cyberpunk genre, at least mechanically. In terms of setting, it feels very much like a standard Cyberpunk dystopia, complete with widespread violence, gangs, feuding corporations, and overbearing A.I. directed governance, though one with a European emphasis and one with a view of weirdness and horror with the inclusion of the Ferals and Vampires. The European emphasis gives it a certain freshness of a long history upended and a less traditional setting for the genre, whilst the horror and the weirdness give it an unexpected, if slight bite.
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