04/25/2019 update: Campaign themes, origins, and graphic design preview
over 7 years ago – Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 02:35:02 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm just jumping in to give you an update on everything that's going on. We're still plugging away at everything. I've got a few things to share with you; just a peek, mind you, nothing is completely set in stone yet, so keep that in mind as you read.

Graphic Design Preview

Here's a link to check out the interior trade dress for the book! The fonts, and headers aren't set in stone yet, though. I'm still playing with those. The graphic artist is  Karl  Kleesler. He also did the graphic design the Wiseguys book.  Anyhow, I hope you like it!

IZ 3.0 sample

Campaign Themes

We've settled on three basic ones; Cyberpunks (working name right now), Protect and Serve, and the Cleaning Crew. Obviously you won't have to use any of them in Interface Zero, but the Plot Point Campaigns are based on them. If you play the PPCs, it'll mean less work for the GM when it comes to prepping your game sessions.

 The Cleaning Crew

The streets always need cleaning, and, assuming the corps or sectors pay the bills, there is always someone there to pick up trash and mop up messes in public places. A cleaning crew takes it up a notch. Rather than clearing out debris or washing off the remains of someone’s dinner, a cleaning crew makes sure those awful things that lurk in the darkness don’t make a mess of people. The crew is always alert to strange happenings and unexplained murders, so they can get to the scene and track down the lab-grown menace that escaped (or was released) from its home. The biohorrors a cleaning crew faces often make the job short-term. Deaths, injuries, and PTSD incurred while dealing with literal monsters sideline many members of cleaning crews. However, pictures of you hoisting the head of some terrifying beast erupting on social media is worth the potential cost.

Rank: Novice

Team Roles: To be Determined

Setting rules: To be Determined

The Stage: Mostly urban environments across the world, though Cleaning Crews might find themselves hunting down things that have been released into the wilds.

Plot Elements: In a Cleaning Crew game, your characters might find themselves doing types of jobs that include: Accessing the scene of a crime to discover whether the monster who perpetrated it was merely human or something else, trudging through sewers to track down a beast that lairs underground and emerges under the cover of darkness to hunt, or breaching a lab in complete lock-down to put down a bio-horror and maybe save some of the idiots who created the thing.

______________________________

 Cyberpunks

You are cyberpunks living life on the bleeding edge, fighting against megacorporate influence, raging against political corruption, or simply doing it for the juice (and cryptos) you get from sticking it to the man. The jobs you take are risky—even deadly—but often serve a higher purpose. That, and your street cred soars with every run you hit out of the park. You get access to the sweetest nightclubs, cryptos flow like wine, everyone worships you like heroes returning from war…It’s good to be the queen, baby.

Rank: Novice

Starting Wealth: 20,000 Cryptodollars 

Setting rules: To Be Determined

The Stage: Anywhere in the world

Plot Elements: In a Cyberpunks campaign, your team might go on a variety of missions and interact with all sorts of people across the solar system. Anything from standard milk runs to data snatches from a megacorp or even a world government, and possibly even high profile assassinations are common to a Cyberpunks campaign.

______________________________

 Protect and Serve

Life as a sector cop ain’t easy hombre.’ The badge is a target (sometimes literally), and on these mean streets you can be sure some cybered-out borg or mutant is gonna test your authority. The badge is also a brotherhood. You can be sure that if things get dicey, you can send out a call for backup and your brothers and sisters in blue will respond.

You roll four or five deep in tricked-out armored squad cars. You get top-notch weapons and armor made by Ravenlocke Security, the best firewalls, and some nasty anti-personnel malware just in case some brainer tries to worm his way into your TAPnet and fry your team’s brains like a soy-sausage in a NukeMaster357 food dispenser. It’s a daily war, protecting the streets—but it’s worth the pain. There are no fancy parades when you win like you see on TAPnet shows like Dawn Patrol or The Chicagoland Seven, and the danger you face is as much on the inside of the walls of your precinct detention center as it is on the streets but make no bones about it; you save lives, and in the end that’s why you do the job.

Rank: Novice

Starting Wealth and Equipment: To be Determined

Team Roles: In a Sector Cop campaign theme, you’ll want a versatile team capable of performing a variety of roles. Drone jockeys add another element of protection for your squad and can also surveil areas and track down suspects who flee the scene. Hackers can help disorient opponents, get your team into secure areas, and link everyone together through secure Tendril Access Processor Networks (TAPnets). A medic is vital, as are characters who can negotiate with hostage-takers or talk someone off a ledge. All characters should possess driving and shooting skills.

Setting rules:  “Shots Fired!” All characters must take a Vow (minor) Hindrance to reflect the oath they took to protect the city and fight crime.

The Stage: The streets of the sprawl

Plot Elements: In a Protect and Serve game, your characters might find themselves doing types of jobs that include hostage negotiation, riot suppression, ending gang wars before they erupt into sector-wide warfare, or rooting out moles who provide sensitive information to criminal elements.

_________________________________________________________

Origins

Finally, I want to talk about Origins. Origins are a way to fine tune your characters to reflect the things they did before they began their "adventuring" careers. The main thing Origins do is modify your Core skills  to be in line with the general concept of your character. 

Here are a few samples

 Agent

"There are things that have to be done, things you don't know about, but the agenda of my clients comes before any moralizing"

Agents work for others, usually a nation, corporation, or criminal organization. They have to put the needs of their client over their own, and far above any qualms they might have about right or wrong. Right is always what benefits their client, wrong is everything else. This work they do is often of a very direct nature, if something must be stolen it is the agent who steals it. If someone must be killed, the agent is dispatched. Equally, they are trusted assets who sometimes must speak for their clients in delicate situations.

Core Skills: Common Knowledge, Hacking, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Shooting

____

 Bounty Hunter

"Tracking down a target is as much about talking as chasing and tackling. You want to take them down smooth and fast, and alive as well. Just keep in mind that 'less-than-lethal' is not the same as 'non-lethal'.

Law enforcement being what it is today, bounty hunters are needed to bring in criminals that the po-po can't find or won't bother with. Sometimes people take it upon themselves to hire a bounty hunter for less than legal captures, but a payday is a payday.

Core Skills: Common Knowledge, Notice, Survival, Stealth, and Thievery

----

 Detective

"Half my work is done on the Global DataNet these days, but the other half is still good old fashioned investigation. You have to talk to people, even if it is a virtual conversation, and sometimes visit them in person. Sure, there is a lot more forensic evidence we can gather than back in the old days, but evidence doesn’t commit crimes, people do."

Detectives, be they plain clothes cops or private eyes, are in as high demand as ever. Constant surveillance, cybercrimes, better evidence collection, and other technological innovations have not made their jobs any easier, indeed, they have raised the bar on the amount of knowledge the average detective needs to have. A detective must still be able to interrogate a suspect, work a lead, and manage their snitches, but they also have to be experts on what the latest forensic science has to offer, how to navigate the virtual world, and sort through mountains of data.

Core Skills: Common Knowledge, Intimidation, Notice, Persuasion, and Research

___________________________________________________________

Ok, that's it for now. Take care, everyone, and I hope all is well with you!

04/03/2019 Update: We're alive and kicking
over 7 years ago – Thu, Apr 04, 2019 at 12:24:44 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry I didn't put out an update last month. We've just been keeping our heads down and working. I'm not ready to send out surveys yet, but it'll happen soon; I just want to make sure I'm getting the best (and most accurate) shipping costs before I lock everything in. It's a very important part of this process, and I can't afford to mess it up.

In other news, I'm still fiddling with the hacking rules, but a bunch of other material has been submitted and is ready for editing. I have 99% of the world chapter for the Core rules done, most of the Campaign themes, races, origins, and three major sections of the gear chapter finished and ready for editing/play testing.

We're still working on city trappings. NPC's haven't been done yet, and there are other elements of the GM chapter we haven't touched, like Savage Tales and NPCs.

Edges and Hindrances haven't been done yet, because pretty much everything else has to be in place before we can start looking at ways they can be used in the final systems and setting.

There has been some discussion about the Plot Point Campaigns, but I'm waiting to get the entire world section done before we deal with them. Obviously I have my own ideas, but the foundation needs to be in place first.

I've order some art based on things I've been seeing in the manuscript, but I won't do full orders until the book is ready. Here's a little teaser, though:

Finally, here's the new  IZ logo, done by one our our backers: the very talented  Leon Marais.

02/26/2019 update: The Solar System is unlocked!
over 7 years ago – Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 12:07:03 AM

Congrats everyone, you pushed us over the third stretch goal for the Zero's Guide to the Solar System!

This is another book that has been worked on, but needs some revisions, and artwork to make it shine. Thanks to you, we'll be able to push through and really make the stars shine in this product.

But now, can we get to Dark Pathways? 

Will the stars align and reveal secrets long forgotten by man? Will the ninth gate open and unleash horrors  on metahumanity?

I certainly hope so!

Help spread the word and let's kick it in the ass in the last few hours!

02/28/2019: Dark Pathways
over 7 years ago – Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 12:06:56 AM

So, it looks like we're going to finish somewhere near 60k, which is amazing!  

With that in mind, I've decided to unlock Dark Pathways. It should be a fun source book to do.

Thanks so much everyone!

02/28/2019: Funded!
over 7 years ago – Fri, Mar 01, 2019 at 12:06:33 AM

  Wow, I’m floored.

I’ll admit, this Kickstarter was something I was very concerned about, coming back to the community after six years to do another one, even though I hadn’t completed the stretch goals for the first. I honestly didn’t think this would even reach it’s funding goal, not to mention cross 60,000 dollars and get just as many (actually a handful more) backers as the first one. It’s really hard to wrap my brain around that. The only thing I can really think to say is what I’ve been saying all along. Thank you.

No, seriously, THANK YOU.

Your generosity, your love for the game, your continued trust in myself and the team is humbling, and I don’t take this sort of thing lightly. We intend to bring you some of the best cyberpunk material out there, and I’m so glad you chose to come along for the ride.

Those of you who have backed before can attest to the fact that I often share the team’s design work with you before it’s completed, and we’ll continue to see that happen, because this is your game, and we want you to be happy with the design elements that are going into Interface Zero 3.0.

Some of you have asked if we’re going to do this for Fantasy grounds, and the answer is absolutely, YES! I won’t promise other character builders though. I got burned on that a while back, but I have a good working relationship with the people at fantasy grounds and don’t expect any problems there.

As for the Corporate Profiles book. Yes, we’ll be doing some small supplements for that as well and might do an omnibus of those at a later date. Corp supplements are one of the things that have been sorely missing from IZ, and I want to rectify that.

So, strap in, everyone, the Kickstarter may be done, but the ride is just beginning. I’ll post more updates soon!