At our September 24 meeting, we stopped talking about the Cyborg and started building one. Deighton spent the week before putting together a full cybernetics system for Shadows: limb replacements, mods, software features, and the Neurocybernetic Interpreter, the AI layer that ties a cyborg’s body to their machine parts. Ken, Scott, and Bill each built a cyborg from scratch to see whether the system holds up in practice.
The builds were a blast. One was a beam-cannon gunmaster with rocket-fast legs. One was a chrome-armed gunslinger hitting twice a turn. The third was an ex-corporate hunter whose cybernetic eyes and ears work together as a surveillance suite. Along the way, we found some rules that only ever existed in someone’s head, and one dice mechanic that might not survive the month.
Then the playtest showed us the real problem. Once the characters were done, the team agreed that the Cyborg as currently written has too many moving parts. That led to a bigger question: when you pick Cyborg, what are you actually choosing that no one else gets? The answer we landed on is going to reshape the archetype, and Deighton came away with a clear target for the rebuild.
We also got a look at the latest digital character sheet updates, and they’re good.
Full rundown, including the builds, the design debate, and the moment it clicked, on Patreon.