Firebreathing Kittens

Tale Of Two Castles (Mork Borg)

A Mork Borg adventure that reminds one of Romeo and Juliet with prophesies, goblins, and Wilford, Muriel, and Muse working together to uncover the secrets behind two mysterious castles. 

Trailer for Tale Of Two Castles

A Mork Borg adventure that reminds one of Romeo and Juliet with prophesies, goblins, and Wilford, Muriel, and Muse working together to uncover the secrets behind two mysterious castles. 

How To Play Mork Borg

How to play Mork Borg.
 
Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for Mork Borg. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play your own Mork Borg game.
 
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
Game category
Combat rules
Zero hit points
Abilities
Magic
Omens
Building an example character
How to level up
 
Game category. Mork Borg describes itself as a doom metal album of a game. A spiked flail to the face. Rules light, heavy everything else. It’s set in a world driven insane by accurate prophecies foretelling the end of days. You’ll face goblins, trolls, and blood drenched skeletons. How will you react to the certain impending death of the world? By robbing graves for soil-stained wealth, or facing down the apocalypse, hoping it can be fought? You can play as character classes, such as the esoteric hermit, occult herbmaster, or gutterborn scum. Your character might be a nihilist, someone who stutters when lying, an inveterate bug eater, or maybe you’ll tap into the magic all around you and call down some arcane calamities of your own.
 
This is Mork Borg. A tabletop roleplaying game famous for its artistic rule book. Bright yellow, darkest black, blood red. I encourage you all to check out the rule book even if only from an art perspective. You’ve got nothing to lose because if you don’t like the art style, the creators offer a free bare bones edition that has all unusual layouts removed. It’s just black font on a white background. But that would be a bit sad. I first heard about Mork Borg from a conversation about which tabletop roleplaying game had the most beautiful rule book. Mork Borg and the spinoffs it has inspired are really something special. So if you haven’t browsed this rule book, give it a try. Maybe hearing this explanation of the rules will help smooth your experience. I dunno, let’s get into it.
 
Combat rules in Mork Borg. All the dice rolls in Mork Borg are made by the players. That includes combat turn order, players attacking an enemy, and when players are defending against being attacked. Everything. The game master doesn’t ever have to roll dice.
 
The word initiative means turn order during combat. A player rolls a six sided dice, also called a d6, for initiative. A one, two, or three means the enemies attack first. A four, five, or six means the players attack first. If there are multiple players, they all roll a d6 and add their agility modifiers. Higher rolls can act first.
 
Attacking an enemy goes like this. First, roll a twenty sided dice, also called a d20. Next, if you’re attacking with a melee weapon add your strength modifier to your roll. If you’re attacking with a ranged weapon, add your presence ability modifier to your roll. If the result is 12 or higher, you hit. Roll your weapon's damage dice, something like a d4, d6, etc. Lastly, if the enemy has armor, roll for the armor, which will be a d2, a d4, or a d6, and subtract the armor roll from the damage. Defending when an enemy is trying to hit you goes like this. First, roll a d20. Next, add your agility modifier. If the result is 12 or higher, they missed you. If the result is 11 or lower, they hit you. Roll for their damage (a d4, a d6, etc). If you have armor, roll for your armor (a d2, a d4, or a d6) and subtract the armor roll from the incoming damage.
 
Rolling a twenty or a one on the d20 when attacking or defending are special. A twenty on the to-hit dice is a critical hit. A critical when attacking means you deal twice as much damage and the enemy’s armor or protection is lowered by a tier. A critical when defending means you get a free attack of opportunity. The opposite of a natural twenty critical success is a natural one critical failure, a fumble. Fumbling when attacking means your weapon breaks or is lost. Fumbling when defending means you take twice as much damage, and your armor is reduced one tier.
 
Enemies don’t fight forever in Mork Borg. If they’re at one third of their hit points, or if their leader gets killed, or half the group is eliminated, the Game Master will prompt a player to roll two d6. If the number is greater than the morale number of the enemy, they surrender or flee.
 
Those were the combat rules. Here is an example round of combat. There’s a prowler out, a lawless good for nothing crook banished from civilization. Low on resources, allies, and basic decency, the prowler seeks retribution, and coin. This particular one is a liar who enjoys stealing one single item from people to mess with them mentally, and they love getting the credit for other peoples’ exploits. All of those personality traits come from random tables in the rule book, which is a neat way to quickly customize your enemies. Anyway, the door to your inn creaks and the prowler pokes their head into the room where your party is sleeping, having gained access by lying to the innkeeper saying that they were a late arrived member of the party. The prowler looks around the room at everyone’s sleeping forms. They reach into a bag and remove a single item, just Keftar’s zweihander sword. The prowler smiles to themself and begins to creep out of the room. But before that can happen, let’s roll for initiative. One of the players rolls a d6. It’s a five. The players each roll a d6 and add their agility to determine their turn order. Keftar has a six and is going first, Brint has a five and is going second, and Vrakh has a two and goes third. Keftar’s sword is in the prowler’s hands, so the first thing Keftar wants to do is a strength roll to grapple the sword out of the prowler’s hands. Keftar rolls a d20 and adds their strength modifier. If it’s a twelve or higher they succeed. It’s a fifteen, success, Keftar wrestles their sword out of the prowler’s hands. Brint’s turn is next. Brint wields a whip, but when he rolls a one on the d20 dice to hit, Brint’s player roleplays that as meaning the whip is hard to wield in this small rented inn room. Brint raises the whip overhead, and it catches on a lamp. A natural one on the d20 means the weapon breaks or is lost. It’s hopelessly tangled in the lamp. The last player to act is Vrakh’s player, who fires their short bow. They roll a d20 and get a ten. Adding two from their presence modifier, Vrakh’s player whoops as they get a twelve overall, meaning Vrakh’s arrow hits the prowler. Vrakh’s player rolls a d4 and declares that Vrakh has done three damage. The GM knows the prowler is down from 8 HP down to 5 HP. They’re still above 3 HP, so they don’t ask a player to roll for the prowler’s morale check. The prowler lifts a filthy shortsword and swipes at Brint who is still tangled in a lamp. Brint rolls to defend, adding their agility to a d20. That’s a seven overall, below a twelve, so the prowler hits and deals five damage, leaving Brint with exactly zero hit points. Thus concludes a round of combat in Mork Borg.
 
What happens when a character has zero hit points in Mork Borg? Brint is at zero hit points, so this is a great example. Roll a four sided dice, also called a d4. If Brint rolls a 1, they’re unconscious but will wake up after d4 rounds with d4 hit points. If Brint rolls a two they’re going to lose a limb or an eye, and can’t act for d4 rounds, then after that regain d4 hit points. If Brint rolls a three, they’re hemorrhaging and will die in d2 hours unless they get treated. All tests are a difficulty rating of 16 the first hour and 18 the last hour. And lastly, if Brint rolls a four, they’re simply dead.
 
Thus ends the example combat for Mork Borg. Let’s talk about resting. First off, if you’re infected, you’re not going to heal at all when you rest. Instead, you’ll take a d6 of damage every day until you get healed. But assuming you’re not infected, and that you have food and water, then you can catch your breath to heal a d4 of hit points, and you can get a full night’s sleep to heal a d6 of hit points.
 
Every Mork Borg character has four stats. Mechanically, these modifier scores are what you add to or subtract from your d20 dice rolls. How do you know if the thing you attempted was successful in Mork Borg? Roll a dice, add your stat’s modifier to your roll, and if the number meets or exceeds the difficulty rating, you succeeded.
 
There are four abilities: toughness, strength, presence, and agility. Toughness is used for resisting poison, enduring heat and cold, and surviving falling. Strength is used when you’re striking with a melee weapon, grappling, crushing, or lifting something. Presence is the ability you use when aiming with a ranged weapon, perceiving things, charming someone, or wielding a power. Agility is what you add to a roll when you’re defending or dodging an enemy’s attack, balancing, swimming, or fleeing.
 
Here is an example of testing your ability in Mork Borg. You fall out of the window of an inn. The cobblestones below are rushing up at you. Roll a d20 and add your toughness modifier. If the result is twelve or higher, you pass. If the result is eleven, ten, nine, etc, you fail. For example, a fourteen on the dice minus one toughness is a thirteen overall. You’re fine, you land with a thud but stand up having taken no damage.
 
Magic in Mork Borg might be something your character is able to wield depending on which class they are. It’s present either as a power or a scroll. If your class can wield magic, then each day you roll a d4 and add your presence modifier and that’s how many times that day you can cast it. For example, if you roll a 2 and have a presence modifier of plus one, then you can use your scroll three times today. When you go to wield a power, roll a d20 and add your presence modifier. If you get a twelve or more, you cast the spell. If you get an eleven or lower, the power doesn’t work and the caster takes d2 hit point damage, and becomes dizzy and can’t use powers for an hour. If the d20 was a one, then that’s a fumble. If you fumble when casting magic, you roll on the arcane catastrophes table and one of twenty terrible things happen. It’s possible that the earth could decay around you like wet flesh. You sink three feet and cannot climb out without help. Clinging to you, screaming and biting, are d4 translucent, crayfish-like children with your face. Or it’s possible that a gnashing gap-toothed mouth splits open on your neck. It spits out your secrets and inner thoughts. And something the GM knows that the player might find out, is that it can be silenced to sleep only with blood. Or, as a last example, light itself despises you. If you gaze upon a candle, lamp, or torch, it goes out.
 
Omens. Omens are like the Devil’s Luck if you’ve played Pirate Borg, or Glitches if you’ve played CY_BORG. They’re a limited, daily refreshing resource you can spend to change the outcome of a dice roll. Your class will clarify how many omens you get each day or, if you don’t have a class, you get d2 omens. You can spend an omen to do one of five things. You can spend an omen to deal maximum damage with one attack, or reroll any dice, yours or someone else’s. You can spend an omen to lower the damage dealt to you by a d6. You can spend an omen to neutralize a crit or fumble. Or lastly, you can spend an omen to lower one test’s difficulty rating by four. This can really impact the outcome because the standard difficulty of things is twelve, really simple tasks are six, and nearly impossible tasks are eighteen. You can change that by spending an omen.
 
When you build a character in Mork Borg, you will either choose or randomly roll for a class, abilities, weapon, armor, hit points, and name. Let’s build a character together. Every character starts with a waterskin and d4 days worth of food, which rolling for it is two days of food. Let’s roll a d6 and two d12 dice for your three starting equipment. The dice show a six, a ten, and a twelve, so this character has a donkey, a sealed bottle that deals d10 damage once, and a tent. It’s optional in Mork Borg to gain a class. Let’s do that, since this is a demonstration. Rolling a d6, we’ll build the class called, six, an occult herbmaster. They begin with two d6 times ten silver, which rolling for it is eighty silver. They also get d2 omens at the start of each day, which for today is one omen available to spend.
 
Occult herbmasters are as tough as wood. They get three d6 plus two for their toughness, which rolling for it is ten plus two is twelve, which translate to a modifier of plus zero. Let’s roll three d6 each for the other three stats. Agility is a nine, which is also a plus zero modifier. Presence is a seven, which is actually a minus one. And lastly occult herbmaster strength is rolled at a minus two, so that would have been a fourteen but it becomes a twelve, which is another plus zero. Hit points and carrying capacity are both calculated from the strength modifier. Occult herbmasters have HP equal to toughness plus d6, so for this character that’s a, rolling for it, four. Only four hit points, oof, yes, this is a brutal game with high lethality. This character’s carrying capacity is strength plus eight normal sized items with no problem, so that means they can carry eight items such as a crowbar, lard, a scroll, or a torch, without problem. I guess a tent and a sealed bottle put this character at two. Or maybe the donkey is carrying the tent, not sure. Yeah, let’s go with that, that makes sense.
 
Anyway, continuing on the class page, the instructions say to roll a d2 for a weapon. That’s a two, a staff, a melee weapon that uses the strength ability and does d4 damage. Occult herbmasters also get a d2 on the armor table, so that’s a two, light armor, subtract a d2 from all incoming damage. This character is carrying a portable laboratory, and continually searches for frequently expended ingredients. Yeah, that donkey is definitely carrying the portable laboratory. It says every day, this character has the materials to create two randomly determined decoctions and can brew a total of d4 doses. If unused they lose vitality after 24 hours. Neat. There’s a table here for what could randomly get brewed. Let’s roll a d8 for today’s decoctions. A one and a six. The one is a red poison. The drinker must pass a toughness test with a difficulty rating of twelve or lose a d10 of hit points. Oof. The six is Fernor’s Philtre. It’s a translucent oil that must be dabbed into the eye. It heals infections and gives a plus two on presence tests for d4 hours. Neat. The class gives us one more thing. This occult herbmaster was, rolling for it, probably raised in an illegal midnight market. That ends all the things from that class page.
 
There are some optional tables on pages thirty nine to forty three, so let’s roll for them. This character gets two terrible traits which, rolling for it, they are shrewd and bitter. They have a physical impediment which, rolling for it, is that their face is resting maniac face, which makes it hard to make friends. They have a bad habit, rolling for it, they have a permanent phlegm deposit in their throat. They continuously cough, snort, and spit. They’re also in massive debt. The debt is being traded to successively more ruthless groups. The last instruction in character creation is, quote, “Name your character if you wish. It will not save you.” lol. There’s a table on the front inside book cover, so let’s roll a d6 and then a d8 for their name. This is Merkari, the occult herbmaster. Merkari has four hit points, a plus zero in toughness and agility and strength, and a minus one in presence. Merkari has a red poison and a Fernor’s Philtre, and also a sealed bottle that deals d10 damage once. Merkari’s donkey is loaded up with a tent and a portable laboratory. Merkari doesn’t have a lot of friends, partly because of their resting maniac face, partly because they’re a shrewd and bitter person, partly because they’re in debt, and partly because they continuously cough, snort, and spit. That’s Merkari.
 
Leveling up in Mork Borg affects three character aspects. You get more hit points, you find an item, and you change your abilities. To get more hit points, roll six d10. If the result is equal to or greater than your current maximum hit points, increase your max HP by d6. Six d10 is at least six, so the first time we level up, we’ll increase Merkari’s four hit points by a d6 for sure. Roll on the table on page 33 to see what item you find. It could be a scroll, or some silver, or nothing. You can use the scroll to cast magic, spend the silver on a better weapon, or get nothing. And roll a d6 against each of your four abilities. If the result is equal to or greater than your modifier, increase it by one. The max is plus six. But unlike most games where leveling up can only improve you, if your d6 is below your ability modifier, decrease it by one. If you roll a one on the d6, always decrease your ability modifier, to at most a negative three.
 
For players in the upcoming game session I will be GMing, you can triple your starting silver money so you can afford to buy a few things. We’re at ten percent of maximum power level at this time in the year, so that amount of money won’t be able to afford much, but it’s slightly more than a starting character. Also, you’re welcome to do one level up advancement, if you’d like. I do acknowledge that leveling up can decrease your ability modifiers, so you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
 
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing Mork Borg in a oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to hear an example of Mork Borg in action. We encourage you to find the Mork Borg rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.

Granny's Glasses (CY_BORG)

Granny Kifo wants to ensure that she has the brand-new bio-compatible online device that looks like a normal pair of glasses so that her company has the upper hand. Using the new tech, new blood Muse Martinez joins Tracey Cavortae in a “hare” raising CY_BORG adventure that will leave you laughing and wanting more! 

Trailer for Granny's Glasses

Granny Kifo wants to ensure that she has the brand-new bio-compatible online device that looks like a normal pair of glasses so that her company has the upper hand. Using the new tech, new blood Muse Martinez joins Tracey Cavortae in a “hare” raising CY_BORG adventure that will leave you laughing and wanting more! 

How To Play CY_BORG

How to play CY_BORG. Hi everyone, this is a special how to play episode of Firebreathing Kittens. I’m the game master for an upcoming session using the rules for CY_BORG. This episode is a summary of what I learned after reading the rule book. Hopefully this will be a handy guide for how to play for my players, will help me organize myself, and will be useful for you listeners, too, who are looking to play your own CY_BORG game.
 
I’ll organize this how to play guide into sections.
Game category
Combat rules
Zero hit points
Abilities
Apps
Nano powers
Glitches
Building an example character
 
Game category. CY_BORG is a game where you the players are pitted against the corp, the cops, and the capitalist system. There are mechanics for your character to implant cybertech, for you to hack tech using apps, to experience glitches online via your retinal com device that transfer to reality, to use drugs, for your character to become colonized by alien bacteria riding nanobots, or to become infected with the less helpful infestations of alien crabs, gills and tubes. The class you play as will impact your abilities, and include a shunned nanomancer, a burned hacker, an orphaned gearhead, and more. CY_BORG characters have five stat abilities: knowledge, agility, presence, strength, and toughness. Ability modifiers are added to your roll on a twenty sided dice, also called a d20, to determine if you meet to beat the difficulty rating to succeed. The difficulty ratings, or DR, range from 6 for a simple test, to 12 for normal difficulty, to 16 for really hard to accomplish tasks, to 18 for hurdles that are almost impossible to overcome. Roll the dice, add your ability modifier, and see if you meet to beat the difficulty rating to hack your way through the world of CY_BORG.
 
Let’s talk about combat rules in CY_BORG. If you’ve played Pirate Borg or Mork Borg, how to attack and defend will sound familiar. The core combat rules for the Borg games (Pirate Borg, CY_BORG, and Mork Borg) are pretty much the same. Here are the shared combat rules. I’m going to just like, read the summary of these, and then if that doesn’t make sense don’t worry, because I’ll do an actual example.
 
All the dice rolls in the Borg games are made by the players. That includes initiative, when players attack an enemy, and when players are defending against being attacked. The game master doesn’t ever have to roll dice.
 
The word initiative means turn order during combat. Players roll a six sided dice, also called a d6, for initiative. A one, two, or three means the enemies attack first. A four, five, or six means the players attack first. If there are multiple players, they all roll a d6 and add their agility modifiers. Higher rolls can act first.
 
Attacking an enemy goes like this. First, roll a d20. Next, add either your strength ability modifier for melee attacks or presence ability modifier for ranged attacks. If you get a 12 or higher, you hit. Roll your weapon's damage dice (a d4, d6, etc). Lastly, if the enemy has armor, roll for the armor (a d2, a d4, or a d6) and subtract the armor roll from the damage. CY_BORG adds the aiming and autofiring mechanics. If you spend a round to aim, you can either reduce the difficulty rating by two so that you hit on tens, or you can deal an extra two damage. Hits always deal at least one damage. If your weapon has autofire, written as the letter a after its damage dice in the rule book, that means hitting the first time lets you make a second attack, against either the same target or another one nearby, up to a maximum of three attacks. Defending when an enemy is trying to hit you goes like this. First, roll a d20. Next, add your agility modifier. If the result is 12 or higher, they missed you. If the result is 11 or lower, they hit you. Roll for their damage (a d4, a d6, etc). If you have armor, roll for your armor (a d2, a d4, or a d6) and subtract the armor roll from the incoming damage. Anyone can take cover, which increases the difficulty rating by two for light cover, and four for heavy cover.
 
Rolling a twenty or a one on the d20 when attacking or defending are special. A twenty on the to-hit dice is a critical hit. When defending, you the player can make a free attack. When attacking, you deal double damage and reduce the enemy’s armor by a tier. Rolling a d20 to get a critical is great. The opposite of a critical is a fumble, a one on the to-hit dice. If you fumble when defending, the player takes double damage and their armor is reduced by a tier. If you fumble when attacking, then roll a d6. On a one, two, or three, you’re out of ammo. You also drop you weapon or otherwise make it unusable until you spend an action fixing things. On a four or a five, your weapon breaks. It has to be repaired outside of combat. On a six, your weapon explodes and hurts you for d6 damage and is beyond repair. Fumbles are rough.
 
After every combat, roll a d8 for each weapon you fired, or a d6 if you used autofire. A one, two, or three means you are out of ammo and have to reload, which costs ten percent of a weapon’s price. Reloading means it’s a good idea to keep some spare change. The last thing you do after a combat is heal a bit. Catch your breath, wipe your brow, and recover d4 hit points. You can restore a d6 of hit points also if you eat, drink, and sleep for a full night’s rest.
 
Those were the combat rules. Here is an example round of combat. Kei is getting their wanderlust out going on a Jupiter’s travel, riding his motorcycle down the open road, black clouds and skyscrapers rising behind him. He glances back at the city skyline in the far distance and notices much closer, a speck behind him, eating the distance between them. Kei recognizes a roadrunner following him. That sounds cute, but he isn’t Wile E Coyote, and that isn’t a bird. In the world of CY_BORG, a roadrunner is a motorcycle riding, masked wasteland scavenger rightly feared for their territorial brutality and hyper tuned, weaponized rides. The roadrunner hoists an assault rifle up to their shoulder! Kei’s player rolls a dice for initiative. A two, the enemy goes first. The roadrunner fires the assault rife at Kei. The player rolls a d20 and adds agility to defend, getting a thirteen overall. Whew, the roadrunner missed him. That’s good, because assault rifles have auto fire and if they hit once, they can attack again. It’s now Kei’s turn. He turns around and aims his shotgun at the roadrunner. Kei’s player rolls a d20 and adds their presence, and Kei and pulls the trigger. It’s a fifteen overall, the shotgun sprays the roadrunner! A shotgun deals a d8 of damage, which, rolling for it, is six damage. The roadrunner’s waster’s tux outfit gives them a slight protection from road rash but at a d2 it isn’t very effective against shotguns. Rolling, that’s only one hit point prevented by the armor. Kei’s shotgun still does five damage, depleting all hit points from the roadrunner. The roadrunner’s motorcycle swerves, fishtails, and skids to a stop in a soft shrubbery. Combat is over! Kei checks his shotgun, rolling a d8. A one, two, or three means he would be out of ammo and have to reload, which costs ten percent of a weapon’s price. It’s a four, whew, he still has some ammunition. He wipes his brow and rolls a d4 to recover 1 hit point, which is good, he had been down one from an earlier skirmish. Overall he’s feeling great. He has caught his breath, and breathes deeply of freedom as his motorcycle roars away, red tail lights shining.
 
That worked out pretty well for Kei. For the roadrunner, not so much. What happens when a character has zero hit points in CY_BORG? Having exactly zero hit points is called being battered. When you’re battered, roll an eight sided dice and do whatever the battered table says. The roadrunner is at exactly zero hit points, so they roll an eight sided dice, also called a d8. I will walk you through the eight possible outcomes. On a one and a two, the roadrunner rolls a d4 dice and falls unconscious for that number of rounds, then awakens with a d4 of hit points. On a three or a four, they test their presence. That means the roadrunner rolls a d20 and add their presence modifier. If they fail, they fall into a Cy-rage. Cy-rage means they go berserk, temporarily gaining a d8 of HP and attacking completely random targets twice a round with their strongest weapon. Their attacks are DR10 to hit or DR14 to defend against. They don’t stop until they’re either reduced to zero hit points, sedated, or dead. So that was a three or a four on the d8 dice for having exactly zero hit points. If the roadrunner rolls a five or a six on the d8, they’re critically injured. Roll on the body table to see what body part is destroyed. Maybe one day they can have it regrown and replaced, but for d4 rounds they are unable to act, after which they gain d4 hit points and can act again. If the roadrunner rolls a 7 on the eight sided dice for being battered, they got a hemorrhage, which means if they don’t get treated within two hours they die. Lastly, if they roll an eight, they are dead. Unless the roadrunner has money, and then, well, the medical care for the wealthy is pretty good. They have a fifty percent chance of saving you, if you can get to an emergency room and if you can pay for it.
 
Thus ends the example combat for CY_BORG. Let’s talk about abilities. Abilities in CY_BORG represent your character’s skills. Your character’s numbers for these abilities come from rolling three d6 and converting the roll result to a modifier score. Mechanically, these modifier scores are what you add to or subtract from your d20 dice rolls. To get your modifiers, consult the table on page forty to convert your three d6 roll to the modifier score you’ll use. For example, if you roll a one, two, three, or four, that means that ability has a modifier score of negative three. Any roll you make with that ability, you would subtract three from. Here’s a second example. If you roll a nine, ten, eleven, or twelve on the three d6 dice, that means that ability has a modifier of zero. Whatever you roll on the dice, you add zero to, that’s your result. One last example. If you roll a fifteen or sixteen, your modifier is plus two and you’ll add two to every d20 you roll for that ability.
 
There are five abilities: toughness, strength, presence, knowledge, and agility. The toughness ability modifier score is added to your roll when you try to survive falling, poison, and the elements. Strength is the ability modifier added to rolls that involve striking someone, grappling, lifting, and throwing. You will add your agility modifier to your roll when sneaking, dodging, driving, or autofiring. Your knowledge ability modifier is added to science rolls, when you’re using technology, or using an app. Lastly, the presence ability modifier is added to your sniping and shooting rolls, when using nano, and when charming someone.
 
Here is an example of testing your ability in CY_BORG. Gul is trying to sneak. She rolls a twenty sided dice and adds her agility modifier, which is plus two. If she gets a six she will succeed at a simple test of sneaking, like if the guard was asleep. If she gets a 12 she can succeed at normal difficulty sneaking, like a guard in the next room over. If she gets 16 she can do really hard to accomplish tasks, and with an 18 she can succeed at a stealth operation that would be almost impossible to overcome.
 
Let’s talk about apps. You character can use apps, which are cassettes with the ability to hack tech and physically affect their surroundings when inserted into a cyberdeck. Some of the apps a character can use are, for example, Nok_Nok, which opens a nearby locked door, >eRase, which cuts or copies the latest ten minutes of stored information from any type of recording or surveillance device, PathMapper, which uses nearby sensors and cameras to create a 3D map of the surrounding one hundred meters, and beaconworm, which places a tracker into any device or cybertech, enabling you to track its movements in real time for the upcoming d4 weeks. To use an app, first connect to the app, which is called jacking into the deck. When connected, all non-app actions have a plus two difficulty rating. The test to see if you use the app successfully is a DR 12 knowledge roll. If you do successfully use an app, each use adds plus one to the risk of fumbling when using apps until the next day. A fumble burns that app for the day and triggers a backlash.
 
Here is an example of using an app. Nur is jacked into the deck and has the app loaded in one of its slots. They want to use app number 4, the false flagger, which fakes an alarm or the location of a triggered alarm. Any response to a real alarm is delayed by 2 d6 minutes. To see if this works, Nur’s player rolls a d20 and adds their knowledge modifier. That’s nine plus three is twelve, which meets a normal difficulty rating of twelve to beat it. Success. An alarm blares on the opposite entrance to the building, which keeps the guards occupied for, rolling 2 d6 for it, eight minutes. Write it down somewhere that you successfully used an app. Each use adds plus one to the risk of fumbling when using apps until the next day, which I interpret to mean that not only a one but also a two fumbles if you’ve used an app once. If you’ve used apps two times, then a one, two, and three on the dice would all be fumbles.
 
App fumbles. Nur is jacked into the deck and has the app loaded in one of its slots. They want to use app number ten, CTech Attack. If this succeeds, the nearby corrupt corpos will lose a total of 4 d10 HP. Nur’s really excited for this. To see if this works, Nur’s player rolls a d20 and adds their knowledge modifier. That’s a one on the dice plus three knowledge modifier is four, oh no, which fails to meet a normal difficulty rating of twelve. But even worse, a one on the dice is a fumble. A fumble burns the app for the day and triggers a backlash. Let’s roll a d20 to see what backlash Nur gets. That’s a ten. Nur is ID’d by a hacker collective. They ask for d10 credits in 72 hours of they will post real or fabricated incriminating data of Nur and Nur’s friends for everyone to see.
 
Nano powers are strange powers that are rumored to be an infection of alien bacteria riding nanobots. If you are a host for this parasite, you are granted curious powers. These can vary and are listed on page 75. For example cosmic dust bots cover an area of up to twenty meters in diameter in dust and darkness for ten rounds. They taste like stained, rusted metal. Another example is remote control. A target within spitting range must obey a single command. You will forever hear their wordless voice faintly echo in your mind. Those are some example nano powers. To see if you succeed, roll a d20, add your presence modifier, and if it’s a twelve or higher, you activate the power. A failure hurts you for d2 damage. A fumble triggers the infestation linked to that power. Each nano adds plus one to the risk of fumbling when using nano powers until the next day, which I interpret to mean that not only a one but also a two fumbles if you’ve used it once. If you’ve used it two times, then a one, two, and three on the dice would all be fumbles.
 
Glitches are similar to Devil’s Luck in Pirate Borg. You begin with d2 glitches, so that’s either one or two of them. You class might give you a larger dice. After resting, if you used up all your glitches the previous day, you can roll your dice for more. You can spend a glitch to do one of five things. Either deal maximum damage with one attack, or reroll anyone’s dice roll, or lower the damage you are receiving by a d6, or neutralize a critical or a fumble, or, before rolling, reduce the difficulty rating of one test by four.
 
When you build a character in CY_BORG, you will either choose or randomly roll for a class, abilities, features, stuff, debt, glitches and hit points. I’ll build a character as an example. First I’ll roll for a name on the table on the first page of the book, so I have a word to call this character I’m building. The dice results are: first name Clock, last name Fu. Let’s follow the steps on page 38 for character creation. Clock Fu starts with two d6 times ten money credits on an anonymous credstick, which rolling for it is 60. They start with some cheap clothes and a retinal com device, which is a headset that augments reality. Every character in this game wears one and it lets you access the internet. Like everything, it can be hacked. We roll a d8, a d12, and another d12 to give Clock some starting gear. Clock has mirrorshades, a bio ID scanner that can track a person within fifty meters, and a fake ID.
 
Next, I’ll roll for a class, which will tell me instructions for gear, abilities, hit points, debt, and glitches. Rolling a six, that’s a forsaken gang goon class. Clock ran with the only gang to have their back and treat them like more than slum trash. They were Clocks’ family, and Clock bled, stole, and fought for them. They’re gone now, but Clock still has to keep their edge. Classes like the forsaken gang goon have a few ability numbers they start with, and then you roll 3d6 for the rest of their abilities. Because they’re small, which is a key word, it says here that Clock the forsaken gang goon starts with three d6 minus two strength so that’s eight minus two is six. Getting six on the roll means a score of -2 for strength, ouch. The forsaken gang goon doesn’t list any other impacts to the rest of the ability rolls, so let’s roll three d6 for each of them using the table on page forty. Agility is a nine across three d6, that roll translates to a +0 agility score. Knowledge is off, I rolled low, a three, a one, and a one, so that five roll becomes a -2 knowledge score. Presence is, rolling three d6 here, eight, so that’s a -1 presence ability score. Wow Clock’s stats are below average. We’ve got one more ability to roll, toughness, let’s roll three d6 dice here. The result is a two, a five, and a six for thirteen on the roll, which translates to a +1 for Clock’s toughness. Wow that was a bit rough, Clock’s not got the best stats. But hey, that’s a real example of rolling for a character’s abilities in CY_BORG.
 
Let’s continue with this goon class. Because of their stealth, all of Clock the forsaken gang goon’s presence and agility tests are two difficulty rating easier. Goons roll a d6 for their weapon, so that’s a one, a broken bottle that deals a d3 of damage. You can calculate a d3 by rolling a d6 and dividing the result in half. Goons also roll a d2 for armor, which is a two on the dice, for a styleguard on the table. This is tier one armor, which reduces incoming damage by a d2. It looks just like clothes. Clock starts with debt on page sixty one, so, rolling for it, that’s nine thousand credits owed to a small but extremely violent corporation, and they badly want their cash back. Rolling to find out what happened to their gang family, it looks like Clock’s friends were hauled off by the cops. When the cops came they found Clock there too, but thought they were just a punk kid. Loyal to each other, nobody in your gang ratted Clock out, and that’s why they’re still free. Let’s roll for Clock’s specialty using a d6 dice. That’s a six, which means Clock’s specialty is assaults. Clock always liked it old school; both hands raised running straight at the enemy. Whatever weapon you begin with, start with one for each hand. Nice, two broken bottles. You can use it to make a second attack each round at a difficulty rating of fourteen. That’s great. Lastly, gang goons have their toughness number of hit points plus a d6, and have d3 glitches. That’s one plus one is 2 hit points, wow that’s low, and, rolling a d3 which is a d6 divided by two, that’s two glitches.
 
Characters also get features, style, and obsession on pages 54 to 58. Let’s roll a d100 for a feature. Forty nine. Using the table on page 55, that’s an interesting perfume. I’ll do a quick search for perfumes on google to flesh this out a bit and hmm, it looks like oak is the first strange perfume to come up. Clock smells like an oak tree. Next let’s roll a d100 for style. Thirty six. That’s something called glitchmode. I’m imagining that instead of normal black eye outline makeup, Clock has a line of red on one side of the black, and a line of blue on the other side of the black, and it looks a bit like a glitch. That’s Clock’s style. Rolling a d20 for their wants, Clock wants a six, fame. Clock wants to be famous. Rolling a d20 for a quirk, that’s a ten, Clock always wears a hat or a hood and shades, always. Ooh, so the mirrorshades are back. Rolling for a current obsession on a d100, that’s a seventy, Clock is obsessed with slacklining, which I have to actually look up, one second. Oh that looks a lot like what I’d call tightrope walking, except the line is sagging instead of straight, and they don’t carry a balance pole. Ooh, that’s an interesting hobby. It’s nice that CY_BORG comes with all these randomization tables to flesh out your character. I doubt I could have come up with this slackline walking, hood and mirrorshade wearing, glitchmode styled, oak tree smelling character on my own, but now that the puzzle pieces are in front of me I’m already imagining how they go together. Neat. Thus ends character creation, and this how to play guide.
 
For players in the upcoming game session I will be GMing, you can double your starting money credits so you can afford to buy a few things. We’re at five percent of maximum power level at this time in the year, so that amount of money won’t be able to afford much. Don’t advance or level up at all. Simply follow the instructions for how to create a character, and then double your starting money credits, and spend it on whatever you can afford and want to buy.
 
Hopefully this little rules chat helps my players build their characters and understand how to play. For everyone listening, if you’d like to hear an example adventure, the episode of Firebreathing Kittens podcast right after this is a demonstration of us playing CY_BORG in a oneshot game session. We invite you to listen to it to hear an example of CY_BORG in action. We encourage you to find the CY_BORG rule book yourself, and play a game with friends.

Muse Martinez Interview

Muse Martinez Interview

Fugue Tracing (Pocket Gumshoe)

Oliver and Hefty must crack the case before the killer cracks any more heads in this mystery of forgotten memories. Fugue Tracing is a Pocket Gumshoe actual play podcast.

Trailer for Fugue Tracing

Oliver and Hefty must crack the case before the killer cracks any more heads in this mystery of forgotten memories. Fugue Tracing is a Pocket Gumshoe actual play podcast.

Salty Sea Shanties (Pirate Borg)

When new Firebreathing Kittens Gilda, Muriel, and Tracey come into a quantity of the drug known as Ash and are captured by the navy, hijinks ensue! Pirates and sirens abound as the trio sail the high seas in this Pirate Borg adventure!