Tags
Cybernetics, Cyborg Commando, Gygax, Military, Military July, New Infinities, Post Apocalyptic, RPG, Science Fiction
New Infinities Productions' Cyborg Commando
1987. Cyberpunk and cybernetics are hot, and Gary needs a new gig now that he’s been pushed out from TSR and suddenly can’t keep writing Dungeons & Dragons books and articles. Then the aliens invade and our only defense is cybernetically enhanced humans and new dice curve algorithms.
Welcome to Cyborg Commando by Gary Gygax, Frank Mentzer and Kim Mohan – a veritable triumverate of awesome from the old days at TSR. And now the authors of a really bizarre and ultimately forgettable RPG that is claimed by many to be one of the worst RPGs ever to be published. Highlighted in the game is the new d10x system, where rolls are made by rolling 2d10 and multiplying the results which produces a weird inverse exponential function with most of the results being in the low end of the scale, with weird outliers spiking in at 80, 81, 90 and 100. And I emphasize the “highlighted” here, because there are three pages of the book dedicated to explaining how awesome this new die mechanic is.
Anyways, in order to fight off the Xenoborg invasion in 2035, humanity now relies on the Cyborg Commandos, our last defenders in a post-apocalyptic alien-infested wasteland. By shooting lasers out of their fingers.
Character creation is quite simple (although there is an advanced character creation system, it really only makes it so you have to deal with three times as many stats and the use of skill categories instead of just skills). I’m going to go with a female cyborg commando, because a chick robocop would have been eight and a half times better than a guy. And since Mentzer is on the writing crew, I’m thinking of using one of the other Basic D&D editors for her name… Moldvay or Holmes. Holmes sounds like a porn star reference, so Moldvay it is.
Commando Moldvay gets 60 points to buy stats and skills. There are three stats (Mental, Neural and Physical) and she can spend a max of 50 points on them, with the other points left over for skills. I’ll go with 40 points in stats, 20 in skills. Which gives her stats of Mental 12, Neural 20 and Physical 8 (5 points better than human average for a woman… talk about heroic!). Her “Psychogenics” score (measured in Psychons of power!) is equal to her Neural stat – this is used for ESP and other cool and highly scientifically-based stuff.
I went with Mental of 12 because I cheated and read the skill section. She gets a number of skills equal to her Mental / 3 (4 in this case), and I also determine that it takes her 88 hours of training per point of skill gained (100 – mental). With her Neural of 20, she gets 2 points each for Actions, Rest & Speed.
For her 4 skills, she gets to spend those last 20 points. We’ll go with Personal Weapons, Law Enforcement, Vehicles, and Unarmed Combat – for that whole Robocop vibe. Obviously she was a police officer prior to her career as a Cyborg Commando. She starts with all skills at level 1 as a CC, and the 20 points get spent to bring them up to 10, 7, 4, and 3.
Once she gets converted into a Cyborg, however, her Physical stat jumps from 8 to 108. Why didn’t I just put it at 1 to begin with? Oh well… Hand to hand damage and healing rate is equal to Physical / 10, and Integrity Points (hit points, anyone?) is equal to Physical x 2.
As part of the Cyborg Commando conversion process, Moldvay was also implanted with a MadMac computer that also has a bunch of skills at level 10. This enhanced Unarmed Combat skill gives her a damage bonus of +5
The CC body has batteries that provide 200 Power Units of electricity. These can be recharged by sticking your fingers in an outlet, or by swapping batteries. PU are spent to fire onboard weapon systems or to move at hyperspeeds.
With that done, Franky Moldvay is ready to head out and fight the Xenoborgs… A hideous alien race that uses organic technology and who are detailed down to the cellular level in the GM’s book.
Seriously, the cellular level.
It’s all “hard science” you know. Cyborgs and giant invading bugs made of 3.5cm X-cells that it can turn into microwave emitters.
Francine “Franky” Moldvay
SP: 60Mental: 12
Neural: 20
Physical: 108Psychogenics: 20 Psychons
Training Time: 88 hours
Actions: 2
Rest: 2
Speed: 2Damage: 16
Heal: 11
IP: 216Power Units: 200
Skills
Unamed Combat – 3 (Total 12)
Personal Weapons – 10 (Total 10)
Law Enforcement – 7 (Total 16)
Vehicles – 4 (Total 4)MadMac Skills
Strategy & Tactics – 10
Unarmed Combat – 10
Communications – 10
Energy Sciences – 10
Law Enforcement – 10
You know I don’t think I ever even made it to character creation. After giving the rules the once over, I decided skip it and decided to try playing The Price of Freedom instead.
I actually ran a short campaign of it with two players. They started out as prototype Cyborg Commandos during the early days of the program, before the invasion.
The invasion occurred at game session 8, and we played 10 sessions.
They actually mostly enjoyed it.
And for some reason, I never bought The Price of Freedom. I seem to be missing a lot of WEG games. I got really turned off by the D6 system for Star Wars and didn’t get into collecting their games after the fact either like I did for some other lines.
Haha I remember this one… again, don’t think I ever got as far as character creation after giving the rules a once-over. It must’ve been a shock at the time that three greats like Gygax, Mentzer and Mohan could collectively put out such a steaming pile of crap as this. It seriously goes a long way to make other Gygax turkeys (Dangerous Journeys? Lejendary Adventures?) look playable and slick.
And I think you’ve captured perfectly the deadly-serious hard sci-fi feel that the books read like, with a system that is simultaneously boringly simplistic and needlessly arcane. I don’t remember the d10x system really catching on… perhaps it was just too revolutionary for the times.
@Millsy – the d10x never did. I think it’s too revolutionary for even today.
Definitely too revolutionary.
Although I remember running into a d6x reference in some game in the past decade, but can’t for the life of me remember where.
Just wait until my kewl multi-genre do-anything system emerges on the market, utilising my revolutionary d100x system! Imagine the realism and possibilities of an arbitrarily-distributed random number system between 1 and 10,000! Not even the short-lived d30x system could compete with that!
Your d100x’s inverse exponential function will cower before the might of my d20xx system! That’s right, d20 x d20 x d20! My reverse exponential function has an incredibly tight grouping in the lower end of the scale and then drifts off into an incredibly long tail of huge results, up to the power 8000!
You are a glutton for punishment.
I own Cyborg Commando and Price of Freedom. I can’t ever imagine making a character for CC though.
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Holy crap. I used to own this RPG — bought it on the strength of the Gygax name.
Never made it to building a character, I think. If I did, I think I’ve blocked it out of my memory.