Weapon and Armor Rules for Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic and Cyberpunk OSR Games

Let's say you're planning a game that will have a massive variety of equipment– anywhere from daggers and chainmail, to assault rifles and kevlar vests, to powered armor and laser guns.  If so, six things are probably true:

1) You're awesome

2) So is your campaign 

3) Your game will have hundreds of different weapons and armor options in it

4) You want these options to be somewhat balanced, such that plasma guns are better than longbows, but not realistically better– that is, the cowboy will be outmatched against the space marine, but will at least have a chance of doing damage and maybe winning

5) You don't want to individually write up those hundreds of items all at once

6) You want it to be easy to introduce new items as the game goes on, likely including weapons and armor designed by your players

I like the simplicity of systems that say, like, small weapons like daggers do d6 damage, medium weapons like longswords do d8, and large weapons like mauls do d12.  In those systems, you can introduce any new weapon you want and immediately know what its stats should be.

This is the same concept, except a) much more comprehensive for systems where you have wide variances in tech level, and b) uses armor as damage reduction.  

Weapon Types and Damage

Unarmed attacks do d3 damage.

Weapons fall into four sizes: small (dagger, pistol), medium (longsword, machine pistol), large (greataxe, rifle), and heavy (scorpion, mortar, bazooka, heavy machine gun).

In post-apocalyptic games, you have four tech levels: improvised or stone age weapons, low-tech weapons including medieval and wild west stuff, modern weapons of 20th and 21st century tech level like assault rifles and pump-action shotguns, and futuristic weapons like laser guns and lightsabers.

In cyberpunk games these have different names but are mechanically identical: improvised, civilian-grade (mostly legal with permit), military-grade (illegal but widely available), and cutting-edge (not mass-produced yet, the kind of stuff you'll be stealing from corporate research labs).  

A weapon's damage value depends on size and tech level:

Improvised: d4 (small), d6 (medium), d8 (large), d10 (heavy)

Low-tech or civilian: d6, d8, d10, d12

Modern or military-grade: d8, d10, d12, 2d8  

Futuristic or cutting-edge: d10, d12, 2d8, 2d10

Further, a weapon might have certain weapon tags, like it's silent, has an area of effect, needs to take an action to reload after every shot, or uses rare and expensive ammo.  Every positive tag lowers the damage one step, every negative tag raises it a step.  

A few exceptions: Automatic fire; weapons with full auto aren't less powerful, generally.  Reach weapons aren't generally less powerful because greater reach isn't worth as much in these settings.  And versatile weapons (can be used one or two handed) are kinda their own thing; the exact benefits of using two hands may depend on the weapon.  Some tags are also not clearly positive or negative.

Examples:

Broadsword: medium low-tech/civilian melee weapon, d8 damage + STR mod, no tags

Three-section staff: large low-tech/civilian melee weapon, d8 + STR mod  Tag: chain weapon, can ignore shields and be used to entangle enemies

Machine pistol: medium modern/military weapon, d10 damage.  Tags: full auto, versatile (can only use full auto with two hands

Monofilament whip: light futuristic, d10 + DEX mod damage.   Tags: chain weapon (ignores shields), precision weapon (uses DEX instead of STR for damage), dangerous (you hit yourself on a crit fail), powered (needs a battery or power source)

You can adjust somewhat from there, but use those as starting guidelines.  

Armor Types and Values

As mentioned, armor acts as damage reduction rather than preventing you from getting hit.  Shields, in this system, affect your defense (chance to get hit) rather than acting as damage reduction like armor.  

Armor is divided by the type of material used and amount of coverage provided.

Armor Materials

Light primitive, like leather or cloth

Heavy primitive, like steel or iron

Light modern, like kevlar or plastic

Heavy modern, like titanium or modern steel alloys

Light futuristic, like aerogel, genetically engineered spider silk, or carbon nanotube mesh weave

Heavy futuristic, like liquid metal, adamantium, or crystalline metals

Certain mutant animal hides or carapace may count as modern or even futuristic material

Armor Coverage

Partial, less than half the body, like a jacket or vest

Majority, 50-90% of the body, like munition armor 

Total, like plate armor or space marine armor

Armor Values

For armor with partial coverage:

d2- light primitive material
d3- light modern or heavy primitive
d4- light futuristic or heavy modern
d5- heavy futuristic material
d6-
d8-
d10-
d12-

If the armor has majority coverage, raise it one die step.  For total coverage, raise it two die steps.  If it's so heavy you can barely move, like a bomb suit or most powered armor when unpowered, raise it three die steps.  If it's powered armor so heavy you literally can't move when it's unpowered, raise it four die steps.  

Roll your armor die when hit, counting a one as a zero, and subtract that value from the damage received.  

You can mix and match armor pieces to create a composite suit; just figure out which of these categories your personal armor panoply comes closest to.

Bear in mind that armor is never made solely out of heavy materials; there always has to be a light under-layer, and modern armor styles tend to use heavy material only over the most vital areas.  That still counts as heavy, not a mix of heavy and light materials.  

Armor can also have tags, like flame resistant, electrically insulated or conductive, specialized against a certain damage type, etc.

Examples:

Kevlar vest with no plates: light modern material with partial coverage, d3

Spiky leather jacket, chainmail kilt, and soccer shinguards: majority coverage with a mix of light modern, light primitive (biggest piece) and heavy primitive, d4

This new army system: mostly heavy modern materials, majority coverage, d5 with all components, d4 if you strip out some of the extra parts like the face and hip pieces

Concealable form-fitting body armor made of spider-silk weave with aerogel reinforcement over the vitals: light futuristic material with majority coverage, d5

Space marine powered armor like in 40k: futuristic heavy materials, heavy total coverage (heavily encumbered and disadvantage to dexterity tests if it goes unpowered), d10

Bomb suit: Heavy modern materials, full coverage, ones actually count as one, specialized: explosions d5 vs most attacks, 2d4 vs explosions, fire and shrapnel 

What This System Does For You

Nearly unlimited variety without much work.  You can take pretty much any weapon or armor– a chainsaw glaive, spiked hockey pads, homemade grenade launcher, rubber tire lamellar– and immediately know what its starts should be.  

This system also compromises between realism and gonzo– high-tech equipment is significantly better, but not the unsurmountable advantage it realistically would be, so a party armed with revolvers and swords and armored with leather, sports gear and scrap metal can fight robots with laser eyes and have a decent chance of winning.   

Esoteric Enterprises Near-Future Cyberpunk Rules & Setting Resources

Once upon a time, back in the olden days of February, I was preparing to run an Esoteric Enterprises campaign set about 10-20 years in the future, blending some cyberpunk elements with the default concept of the game. 

I actually got to the point of getting a group together and nailing down a day and time we'd meet...and then covid hit.  I don't feel like running online so I've been playing a game run by one of the guys who was going to be in my group.  

I'd been waiting until I was ready to actually start my home campaign before posting some of the Esoteric Enterprises Stuff I've written, but it looks like that won't be until sometimes between September and March, so screw it, here you go.  

Esoteric Enterprises Cyberpunk Game Rules

Setting 

San Francisco, in the 2030’s. Alternate history where magic exists but is semi-secret, almost entirely illegal and underground.  Most people have heard of magic but many dismiss it as a dumb conspiracy theory.  Cyberpunk stuff like genetic enhancement and cybernetic implants is just starting to hit the market, but is still very rare.  There’s no “matrix,” but augmented reality interfaces are common. 

No corporate extraterritoriality because that’s always been a bit silly; it’s more like real life where the rich and the big corporations frequently get away with crimes, but in principle the law as written mostly applies to everyone.  Only, like, more so; corporate lawbreaking is often concealed with only the thinnest layer of plausible deniability.  Corporate espionage and sabotage are still uncommon but becoming more common, and everyone knows they happen.  

The campaign concept is a mix of underground exploration as expected in Esoteric Enterprises, and cyberpunk corporate shenanigans like in Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020.   

The closest cultural touchstones here are probably the movie Strange Days, or the Detective Inspector Chen novels by Liz Williams.  If anyone else has any good near future fantasy cyberpunk suggestions, please share in the comments.       

Core Mechanics

Adding in advantage/disadvantage as in D&D 5E.

For skill checks, particularly difficult or easy tasks will have modifiers to your chance of success.  

Under consideration: replacing the old-school saves with attribute-based roll-under saves, so like DEX for dodging stuff, WIS for resisting mental compulsions, INT for seeing through illusions, and so on.  Need to do more thinking about how balanced that would be; in general it would make characters tougher at most levels but a bit weaker at the highest levels, even with ability score advancement tests as described below.  

Skill System

Tech skill split into two INT-based skills– 

Electronics, which covers hot-wiring, computer hardware and other physical electronic stuff

Software, which covers programming and hacking.  Basic computer use does not require a skill.

Contacts skill split into two CHA-based skills– 

Contacts–Legitimate For businesspeople, journalists, cops, and generally law-abiding people

Contacts–Criminal for criminals and the occult

Vandalism skill is gone- breaking stuff with brute force is now a straight attribute (usually strength) test unless you’re using a specific skill for it. 

In place of vandalism is the Larceny skill, which covers lockpicking, safe-cracking, and the like.  Also can be used for hotwiring cars and basic knowledge of security systems, even though that overlaps with the electronics skill.  Mostly DEX-based.  

Characters and Classes

Every time you level up, you can test two attributes for advancement.  Pick two attributes and roll a d20 for each.  If you roll less than the attribute, it goes up a point. 

Every character receives two skill points at first level to assign as they see fit, and one at every level thereafter.  No skill can be raised above half your character level rounded up (not including attribute bonuses) using these skill points, unless you’re a criminal.  

Equipment 

Smart phones are ubiquitous and everyone gets one for free, except non-human spooks.  They are common items.  They’re similar to real-life smartphones, but more powerful in every respect and capable of being operated by natural-language voice commands.  They also have two cameras each on the front and back, allowing them to take crude 3-d images.    

Augmented reality rig: common item.  Consists of glasses or goggles, a pair of gloves, and optional microphone.  Used to operate a phone or laptop in augmented reality.  

Simple drones are common.  They’re like real-life drones, but with better sensors and longer battery life.  Prices range from 50 to 10,000 dollars.  

Cybernetic implants are still uncommon, but becoming more common as medical devices.  Implants that enhance human performance, rather than correcting medical issues, are cutting-edge and not quite yet on the market, but just about to start being sold.  No implants may be taken at character creation; they will become available as the campaign progresses both as they come on the market and as the party gets special hookups for items that aren’t commercially available.    

All kinds of other equipment exists that’s not in the book.  If it exists in real life or would most likely exist a decade from now, it exists in the game.  If you want to buy it just say so, we’ll determine the price, and you can try to buy it.  

Note: I don't have a list of cybernetic implants or anything like that.  I'll introduce them one or two at a time as the game goes on, pulling from a mix of Shadowrun, Stars Without Number, real-world news and science articles, and this list.

Wealth and Purchasing

Windfalls of cash will confer a temporary boost to your resource level (just realized this is actually in the rulebook and I overlooked it).  A big windfall will boost it until your next level-up or until you spend a lot of money.  Getting paid up front for doing a job will boost your resources for the duration of that job, helping you buy equipment for that job.

When buying things, the “budget” below which you can automatically afford things is rules as written; the mechanic for buying more expensive things is different.

Roll 2d6 and add your wealth level.  The DC is 6 for a ten dollar item, 9 for a hundred-dollar item, 12 for a thousand-dollar item, 15 for a ten-thousand dollar item, and so on.  Big purchases may temporarily reduce your wealth until you either level up or get a big cash windfall.    

Wealth is no longer capped at 9.

Spook characters whose wealth is stuck at zero can’t have band accounts or credit cards but can still carry cash around, although spending large amounts at once anywhere law-abiding will be nearly impossible.  

Setting Generation Resources

The setting generation resources in Esoteric Enterprises are amazing, but I added a few more things, for three reasons.  First and most obviously, to match the futuristic setting.  Second, I wanted to incorporate surface locations directly into the map.  And third, I'd like the game to occasionally get outside the city.  

Can't share my physical and faction maps unfortunately, since I am going to use them eventually.  

Alternate surface locations (rolled with different-colored dice)

1- Skyscraper, mostly business use 

2- Mall

3- Transportation infrastructure

4- Large house or small condo building

5- Government building

6- Warehouse

7- Park

8- Museum

9- Empty lot or ruined building

10+: Apartment/condo building, this many stories (larger ones will have shops on the lower levels)

Color-coding for connections between map locations

Surface- Purple

Natural caves- Blue

Subway- Brown

City infrastructure- Orange

Ruins- Green

Mines and artificial tunnels- Red

Note: I didn’t end up with any direct connections between surface locations.  Obviously getting around the surface is normally easy, so if two surface locations end up connected then say they’re connected by a special tunnel or skyway, or maybe they’re both in the same corporate compound that isn’t open to the general public. 

Alternate Factions (rolled with different colored dice)

1- Tech company- small

2- Tech company- large

3- Biomedical company- small

4- Biomedical company- large

5- Other company- small

6- Other company- large

7- Law enforcement

8- Other government

9- NGO

10- Wealthy collector

11- Academic institution 

12- Social club

13-20– Rival adventuring party.  Contains this many people, minus ten.

Color-coding for connections on the faction map

Open war- Red

Shadow war- Orange

Non-violent competition or exploitation- Yellow/Pink

Neutral or subtle manipulation- Green

Friendly Trade- Blue

Alliance or control- Purple

Locations outside the City

All locations generated using Silent Legions system.  Can't say much about this without either giving away too much about my setting, or plagiarizing the book.  I have three small town locations with 3 location tags each, and three isolated locations with 2 location tags each.  All within a couple hundred miles of San Francisco, and most within like 50 miles.

Overall I doubt the whole map will ever get used, but it was easy to generate because I can wait until the players get close to a given location or faction before I flesh out the details.  

That's it for now; I might post some other stuff like a review of the game, some short adventures, or the mission generator I wrote, sometime later. 

Shadowrun Magic for Stars Without Number and Other OSR Games

Shadowrun is a terrible system with an awesome concept behind it, which is why at least once a month someone on r/rpg asks what the best non-Shadowrun system is for playing Shadowrun.  The most common answer– and the correct one in my opinion– is Stars Without Number. 

Now SWN has psionics rules, and the deluxe version also has some "space magic" rules, but neither quite work like Shadowrun magic does.  To summarize:

In Shadowrun, spells are level-less, so any mage can potentially cast any spell (supplements add some special exceptions because it's Shadowrun, of course they do).  When casting a spell you pick the force– the power you'l cast it at– resolve the effects, and then roll for "drain", which means you might take either stun or physical damage from your own spell.  The higher the force, the stronger the spell and the more drain you'll take.

It's not Vancian at all, and nothing I've seen in the OSR quite works that way.  Here's a Shadowrun magic hack that comes really close. 

Pick an OSR game of your choice to play "Shadowrun" with.  As mentioned, SWN is probably the best choice, but Esoteric Enterprises would work too, as would a few others.  It needs to be a game with a magic system though. 

Spells can be leveled as in most systems or level-less; this works either way.  You learn spells as normal; this just changes how you cast them. 

Step One

Pick a spell to cast.  Unlike in normal OSR systems, you can cast spells up to twice the spell level you'd normally be able to cast, so like a first-level wizard could cast level 2 spells, etc.  If using level-less spells, imagine you learn a new spell level every other character level like in most systems. 

There will of course be a cost to casting spells above your normal casting level.  You'll see...

Step Two

Resolve the spell's immediate effects as normal.  Drain comes after the spell is cast.

Step 3

Now comes the price: drain, in the form of temporary wisdom or constitution damage. 

Make a save versus magic, or a wisdom save, or in Stars Without Number, a mental save.

Now take drain.  In the five spell level system of Stars Without Number, this is d4 for a level 1 spell, d6 for a level 2 spell, and d8, 10, d12, so on.  In the nine spell level system used by most games, drain is 1/d2/d3/d4/d5/d6/d8/d10/d12. 

If the spell was a level you'd normally be able to cast– so its level was no higher than half your character level rounded up– drain causes temporary wisdom damage.  If higher, it causes constitution damage.  If you passed the save, the drain is halved, rounded down. 

Temporary WIS and CON damage lowers your modifiers as normal, potentially reducing your hit points, perception, saves vs magic, or whatever those ability scores do in your system. 

If CON goes to zero, you're dead.  If WIS goes to zero, you're just knocked unconscious. 

So as you go up in level, you can a) cast higher-level spells, b) cast higher-level spells safely, and c) pas the save more often, thus taking less drain. 

The number of spells you can cast per day (or per week since the ability damage does take time to heal) still doesn't scale as well as spellcasting ability does in most OSR games.  This works best if you can increase WIS, and maybe also CON, as you level up.  If your game of choice doesn't allow that, maybe make it so drain is completely avoided if you either pass the save by ten or more, or roll a nat 1 or 20 (whichever is good obviously) on it.