How dark can cyberpunk roleplaying get? (Cy_Borg RPG Review)
Vložit
- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- Get the exclusive NordVPN deal here: nordvpn.com/questingbeast. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring this video.
Get Cy_Borg in PDF: bit.ly/CyborgPDF
Get Cy_Borg in Print: amzn.to/3ZkBRqJ
Augmented Reality in PDF: bit.ly/AugmentedRealityPDF
Augmented Reality in Print: bit.ly/AugmentedRealityPrint
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My RPGs (PDF): bit.ly/QuestingBeastPDFs
My RPGs (Print): bit.ly/QuestingBeastBooks
Newsletter: bit.ly/TheGlatisant
Patreon: bit.ly/QBPatreon
Amazon recommendations: amzn.to/3RwpZzU
Questing Beast merch: bit.ly/QBMerch
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My blog: bit.ly/QuestingBlog
Must-read blog posts: bit.ly/OSRposts
The best RPG blogs: bit.ly/OSRblogs
What is the OSR?: bit.ly/PrincipApoc
Send a review copy or advertise: bit.ly/ContactQB
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QUESTING KNIGHT PATRONS!
Adam Waselnuk
Alex Dzuricky
Angel of the Dawn
Ballinson
Branden
Craig Chouraki-Lewin
Craig Marais
Dingus
Dwayne Boothe
Ethan VanHanehem
fikle
Grant G.
Jason Read
Jay Galloway
Jesse Handrich
John Case Tompkins
Jose Trujillo
Kevin Harris
Kris Redmond
Kurtis Bright
Nick
Paulie
Ricardo Sedan
Robby Murphy
Robert DeLuca
RollStats
Ross Padalecki
Seymour Butts
shawn rader
SonOfSofaman
Stayton Aschenbrenner
Steven Taylor
That One Guy
Tim Imbach
Wesley Overman
Zix
This channel makes use of affiliate links, which help support the Questing Beast channel at no cost to you. - Hry
Get the exclusive NordVPN deal here: nordvpn.com/questingbeast. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!
Get Cy_Borg in PDF: bit.ly/CyborgPDF
Get Cy_Borg in Print: amzn.to/3ZkBRqJ
Augmented Reality in PDF: bit.ly/AugmentedRealityPDF
Augmented Reality in Print: bit.ly/AugmentedRealityPrint
I created new 40 characters
"Things are getting worse and worse, the world may be collapsing, the environment is falling apart, corporations are getting more and more powerful, they're stomping on you and you're trying to fight back, but it may be hopeless." Yes, but what about the roleplaying game you're reviewing?
Ouch.
@GoodRogue it's a reference to the real world, sort of poking fun at current events compared to what they game describes.
@@natesdisturbed8719 No way! Really?
I laughed at this for way too long
I heard Free League just acquired The Muppets IP from Disney. That means SMORGAS-BORG: The Swedish Chef Roleplaying Game can’t be far away... 😂 Nice review video. 👍🏽
NGL, I'd buy a Muppets game tied into MorkBorg
SMORGBORG, a child-friendly low-fantasy ttrpg where you play a member of a blue-skinned patriarchal authoritarian regime, hunted and tormented by a giant wizard and his evil minions. Only to discover that you are a mere fantasy trapped inside the collective memory of a post-industrial human society rendering your whole existence a painful farce.
The real corporate evil was the kickstarter fulfillment process.
I hate having to deal with the pledge manager stuff you have to do. I didn't realize they don't get your info from Kickstarter. But when I contacted Free League, they fixed everything really quickly. Top notch folks and a killer book
zzzzzz...snooooze fest
Right!?
Why are there always 10 different ways to change your address? I moved while having backed several projects, took me so long to make the change.
As a long time cyberpunk junkie, I think this book is essential. In fact, both Cy_Borg and Augmented Reality works with Cyberpunk 2020/Red perfectly well. And these two resources are really all you need to run nearly endless jobs, adventures, and missions. Great review, Ben, as usual.
Thanks I just got augmented reality because of you
So are you saying I should get both Augmented Reality as well as the Cyberpunk books? How do the two systems interact with each other (CY_BORG & Cyberpunk)?
For me, the lack of density is a big plus, especially combined with the striking visual design - I'm more likely to remember where to look in a book when its a discrete rule combined with a visual.
Totally, one of the things that always kept me away from Cyberpunk/Shadowrun was the insane amount of rules.
I have a feeling that the Knave structure would work well in a cyberpunk setting. You are only as good as the chrome and apps you're carrying, after all.
I got the western on acid rules that you showed a while ago. I don’t play rpg’s any more, but I enjoy collecting and reading the rules and enjoying the quirky layouts, rules, and lore. I’ll be adding this to my list!
After two games, I'm thoroughly enjoying running this. Lots of flavor, just enough crunch.
Geezer here.....
Great video, as always. Personally I always loved cyberpunk. Of course back in the 80s I had a 14" mohawk in real life, so no surprise I guess. Yes it is the darkest possible setting ever.
Gaming on.
You may be a geezer but it sounds like you truly aged like fine wine.
I like the genre, enjoy the novels, bought several Cyberpunk rulesets. In the end, I found it too depressing to GM cyberpunk adventures and found playing James Bond like RPGs more uplifting.
There's a cool Brazilian cyberpunk game you might want to check out, called "Neo Guanabara - Cyberpunk Tropicalia". It emphasises social solidarity and the power of symbolic individuals in resistance to authoritarian and economic opression, shifting the game away from the typical cyberpunk nihilism while maintaining (or even ehancing, in my opinion) the punk ethos.
Bond, Mork Bond?
I have a friend that loves the spy stuff. I could never get into it. Even with James Bond.
@@stevendavis7628 The name's Borg, James Borg 😄
My approach is to make it as metal as possible, balance out the dour tone with over-the-top goofy stuff. But I wouldn't run it all the time, myself.
Got my copy a couple of weeks ago. It's really pretty and the combat seems a bit more crunchy than Mork Borg but I've yet to run a game of it.
I've played and ran 3 MB games with friends and just ran cy_borg about 2 months ago. The only thing we got a little hung up on was the autofire feature, in true osr fashion I just hand waved it and kept going after the game I realized we did it wrong and was thinking about it too much. Everything is just as simple to understand once you actually read it through.
"Dual Logans" sound cool. You get to be like a crazier cyber Wolverine
11:21
*How badly do they want their cash back?* (d6)
1-6: Very.
Solid. I also want to be a corporate enforcer hell-bent on bring AOL or Myspace back.
Been hoping you’d cover this one!
The name on the spine glows in the dark
I just got this in the mail yesterday. I love it! The style just pulls you in and I love showing it off. Thanks for the review QB! Going to grab AR because I hit the cyberpunk bug with this. (The game being on sale over the holidays totally didn't contribute!)
Looks like rolling dice (players only) and armor reducing damage is a lot like the cypher system. Cool setting!
The art is just gorgeous
Thanks for the vid and the recommendation on Augmented Reality. I'll be picking that up soon!
with all the drama lately Mork Borg/Cy_Borg will be my prefered system to run
…I also like Orc Borg, great homage to WH40k orks.
…oh and there’s Pirate Borg too, but I haven’t got that one yet.
…oh and check Demon Dog, it’s punk Mork Borg.
@@crowgoblin Orc Borg is an absolute delight, so many great tongue in cheek jokes about the orks (my favorite is the physical trait "BIG ARSE", commenting to the mini's having their squat butt-out pose)
Just bought this rule book two weeks ago, dont know when ill be able to play but it was worth it just to read through it
While it's more crunchy than MB, I feel, it's still a much lighter system to run cyberpunk while still retaining the heavy themes. Don't get me wrong Cyberpunk RED and other rpgs of the genre are great (I like The Sprawl) but for something quick and to the point this fits the bill really well. If your table has played MB it's a delight to change gears to this very easily and my players really like all the winks and nods of story references to MB that have been transplanted into CY Borg.
I find funny how these "dark" games can be visually extremely garish and coloured.
I don't find particularly funny the "we're in a simulation" headline. It's just a big, lame "gotcha!": "Surpriiise players, nothing you did here counts. … So… Wanna play Traveller next?"
I feel the best way to pull that off is at the end of the game. Once the simulation resets, you explain to the players. Your characters awaken in a cold medical room. Removing the headsets from your eyes. Everything has just been a game. You've been playing to help restore your minds when you were in a deep coma from an accident, but as you all wake up and look at the window, you realize the simulation was not. A fake it was just a carbon copy of the reality that you now have to live in.Hopefully you'll retain the skills and memories that you learned during the simulation.Because you're going to need them now.There's no more second chances.
Ben! You are awesome. Are you going to review all the new games that are rising to challenge the One Big Game owned by Was-Bro? You are the guy who knows what makes or breaks an indy game. Your voice on this will guide us through the smoke, fog and other confusion. If not, that is okay too - it might not be your thing? My thanks for your amazing stuff. I will always be a big fan of Knave. Knave 2 must rise to power! Perhaps call Knave 3 something like... Knave & Knights (K & K?). Ha! I know, i have been typing way too long, i will see myself out.
Wonderful review as per usual :) keep up the great work
Theres a third party source that allows you to add fantasy races with stat bonuses. So if you wanted to run a grim dark shadowrun campaign you can
Oh, do you have a link to that?
@@grahamcarpenter5135it’s on drive thru rpg, “6th world templates for cy_borg”
I've run this a few times. It's incredible!
Just snagged me a copy with your link. Will be a breath of fresh air away from all this OGL 1.1 debacle.
Thanks Beast, I've been itching to run a Shadowrun campaign for a while. I'm a big fan of the SNES game.
Find a new game you like, folks!
_Fly high!_
Love your flip-through reviews and glad you do stuff other than fantasy. Now I want to buy this even though I'm not planning a cyberpunk game! Any chance you can do a review for Cyberpunk RED ?
If he doesn’t, check out Seth Skorokowsky. He does a great review
I agree, Seth Skorkowsky or JonJon the wise on CZcams.
Thank for the detailed review. I kept going back and forth on this book but I think I'll get it. I really dont like that Rule Zero and I think I'll just white it out. I hate marking in books but TTRPG game makers really shouldn't tell people what to do.
Ive watched some people play and GM at least rolls damage if enemies hit. I typically don't like fully player facing mechanics but as long as I get to roll something I'll be pretty happy.
I have a big interest in this now. Thank you!
Can anyone speak to how applicable it is to other systems? I'm running Mothership but wanted to mine CY_Borg for content.
Just started with Cy_Borg (but bought everything all at once).
Loving it all so far.
I am in the camp of people that really like the book and the layout. Every aspect of a game like this should invoke the setting and I believe if that means style over functionality I am all for that. It's so cool and as a DM from the moment you open that back you're already planning a campaign and a setting from just the page layout alone, that book is successful as a ttrpg guide...
I'm waiting on my shipment of this+MB from free league. Very excited to give it a go
clppng and Death Grips in the song recs? This game has some great taste.
Looks sick, is this game good to run with with minis and terrain or better to do combat and things with theater of the mind?
I mean I tried to make a miniature that looked like it would belong but nothing can really capture that insane style that the art has. Like If it was made by vincent van gogh on a really really bad acid trip
Seems quite interesting. But do I need the original Mork Borg handbook to play this version?
no
Request: bloat games' "survive this!! " series , namely "Dark Places and Demogorgons " and "We die young "
I love the wacky design work on a visual/creative level, but for an RPG rule book, it’s just too hard to ingest for me to get into it… Really love that cover though. Very eye catching!
I suppose that like with Mork Borg, they will release a text only PDF for free
@@twicedeadmage look up Mork Borg bare bones edition.
I really like mork borg, but its honestly kinda disappointing to see how similar the rules are in this. Most of the new rules are just the old rules with a different name for it, and there doesnt seem to even be a lot of new rules in general. Cyberpunk is a much more complicated setting than fantasy, and i think it definitely requires more than this for it to work well. That pointless rule saying you cant play as a cop or a corpo agent also rubbed me the wrong way too. One of the few new rules they added and its only purpose is to try to limit the type of games you can run.
Good just for the tables and net rules if nothing else. Currently playing cities without number and using this on the side.
It is absolutely not punk to be a corp or a cop wtf. Being punk isn't about not following the rules like it was some divine mandate, it's about railing against the corrupt system. Which is what the corps and cops are. Not the person writing the rules to a TRPG.
Yeah, it's so strange when people misunderstand such a simple and core tenet of the whole genre. Sad that "don't willingly support the system that exploits you" is controversial somehow.
so, when are you going to make a sci-fi game?
I would buy this just to supplement with Shadowrun
This is actually talkin to me since i always wanted to play cyberpunk type RPG but Cyberpunk Red seemed very complicated
I GM’d CyberPunk Red for a while and the issue I had with the system was healing. If you want to put a sense of urgency (time constraint) on the PCs and one of them gets injured, it’s almost impossible for the PCs to complete the mission. RaW unless you have a Combat Medic or a particular drug (which you can only use once a day), you can’t deal with damage in any kind of timely way. My players loved the setting and the city detail but once two of them got badly damaged and realised they needed days to weeks to heal it, we moved on.
@@zakf9287 yea. this is why i have looked into the free source material of cyberpunk in 5e. it's a 200+ page pdf file with rules, classes, subclasses and enemies. Crazy
You know, I generally have a low interest in OSR games but something about that Borg always gets my attention
I love Cy_Borg
Yes! love CyBorg!
A problem with the wild graphical layout is that it’s even more inaccessible to the visually-impaired than most text.
GNC, the glass cannon network, is doing an actual play of this in a couple of weeks. This game looks so cool. I love the cover!
I'm already living on a hopeless, socially isolated, corpo-dominated, dying dystopian planet with each day seeming like a glitchy simulation resetting. Why would I like to play at one? ;) But as always, a clear and helpful overview, much appreciated!
I have the same feeling. So, when I run cyberpunk I always give the PCs a chance to make a difference (even to a small community) or just get revenge!
Exactly my thoughts!
I hope you feel better soon.
My gaming group has an x card hard line against anything involving simulated corporate office cubicle slavery. Too triggering.
@@Smittumi yeah, we install a “hope” clause into every game my group plays. I don’t run games that doesn’t allow my group to feel like they are making a difference. I would end up with 0 players and I would personally lose interest, myself! 😂
CY BORG is awesome.
I think the best way to do experience in a cyberpunk setting is one point per Credit of debt paid off.
Does anyone know if you need any other Borg books to run cyborg? Looks really cool.
Nope, it's all self-contained...although, the *Borg community being what it is, there's been a steady flow of fan content ever since the PDFs went out to KS backers.
@@culturalrebel thank you so much. 🤝🏼
Awesome!
Me and some buddies played it, we are on our 2nd session.
We already managed to blow up 2 buildings go 10k deeper in debt then we started off with.
Half of us died, the other half got arrested. One guy got away but then it turned out our contact fucked us. He cut all ties to us and never payed us. (promised pay was an armored car)
I use death in space with cyborg
Yesss!!!!
You have punk confused with contrariain. There is absolutely nothing punk about being a corporate enforcer.
Yeah no kidding. “Punk” is literally fighting oppression.
This stuff is as much art as game.
This game is dope!
Cy-Borg looks really cool, but I definitely would lighten the mood, and not run the setting as-is from the book.
Besides the horrible misunderstanding of punk at 08:11, great review! Definitely my kinda thing
Pretty sure he got that right. It’s not about being contrarian. It’s simply practicing absolute freedom. It’s rejecting what’s being forced on you and deciding for yourself what YOU want to do.
I’m picking up some major authoritarian apologist vibes from you guys, including the commenter right above me. Hope I’m wrong here and there’s just a major misunderstanding. But at any rate, it’s your life. You are free to think what you like, even if it sounds like NPC language to me 🤷♂️
You can break every rule of the book, we even encourage it. We just don’t _encourage_ that you break this one but you’re free to do whatever you want of course.
Nah punk isn't about just breaking rules, it's about breaking clearly malicious power structures. You can argue about where punk began, but the common thread between all contenders was not just that they were rebelling -in general- but were rebelling against specific people, parties, and trends. In the UK, punk grew hand-in-hand with the rise of Thatcher's Conservatism. In the US, punk was born under Nixon and found it's place in disillusionment with both neoliberalism and the non-violent attitudes of 60s (white) counterculture.
Sure, if you look at punk from 50 yards away while speeding by on a train, you might think it's just about rejection of rules, I guess. But when you look closer at the artists that made punk and punk culture, up to and including William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, the politics is specific and anything but subtle. Punk isn't against authority, full stop. It is against the authority that made the world what it is, and how that authority did it.
... Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
If nothing else, punk is not about *simply* practicing absolute freedom. If it were that, then some people would be free to become cops, empowering them and the powers they serve to limit the freedom of others. And I think anyone who had a big brother who listened to the Clash in the next room, listened to more than 2 punk songs, read a work of punk fiction or non-fiction, bought a DIY zine, or even just walked walked by an anarchist soup kitchen knows what punk has to say about that
Thank you for saying this! I was frustrated with his misinterpretation of the rule and what it means. Otherwise, solid video!
Unexpected "huh" moment in this vid--my first thought upon you reading Rule #00 was the same reaction. Didn't expect to hear it only seconds later.
Anyway, thanks for the overview as always. Between you and PDM I feel well served by my subs. I don't like the messy random presentation, but I do like rule books and interesting settings. And dead-tree media. I think I may need to pick this up.
I can only guess that was the authors' intent, considering everything else in the book.
@@trappleton yeah, I think it was just worded terribly 😂
8:13 When the punk way of playing the game is playing it not punk at all.
The page about Rule 0 seems like it would have gone over better as a form of "Antagonists were designed as simplistic enemies. Keep this in mind if you're taking a different approach." instead of framing it as an unbreakable rule. I want suggestions, but like it says, all the rules are suggestions anyway.
💯
That's not the point of the rule at all, though. There's a very specific reason why Rule 0 exists and I find it odd that QB and a lot of others seem to be missing it.
No, the rule is there to, very explicitly and matter-of-factly, explain the point of the entire cyberpunk genre just in case it somehow went over somebody's head in spite of the obvious themes: you are supposed to be rebelling against an unjust system, not upholding it. Otherwise you aren't playing cyberPUNK in the first place.
@7:75 Well said! I completely agree with you on this point!
The layout has the same vibe as Mörk Borg, which is why I kind of dislike them both now... in opposite to Death in Space, where the layout is also done by Johan Nohr (edit: it's not, sorry), and is much more information packed and much less over-the-top graphicaly, and I love that one. Too bad DiS has really the less hype around it of these three products.
Christian Plogfors did the layout and design of Death in Space
@@JasonFuhrman Oh right, my apologies. Johan did some of the ilustrations... well maybe that's why it's so much more readable.
@@CptBurtReynolds Aye aye, my bad.
It's certainly a stylistic choice but I've loved the artpunk of the BORG series and its many offshoots, it's just fun and while I get people argue it's visually intense I never got an impression that information was that difficult to find or read, which could be simply due to how light the systems are.
DIS is nice too however the all black pages CAN be a little tricky depending on your device or reading conditions but overall didn't have a problem there. As far as popularity goes I think it has fine buzz it just scratches a different itch as it isn't really so much scifi horror like Mothership but as one person put it "NASApunk" which I think nails the tone well.
All three are very fun and glad to have them all on my shelf
@@JanStrakon yeah, Nohr I believe did on illustration on the monsters page. The layout in DiS is one of my favorites. He did a great job by both making it usable, but also full of style.
"Well cyberpunk settings never have people who are with the corps cops etc"
Literally every cyberpunk piece of media ever: 🤨📸
These "cyberpunk fans" don't consume any cyberpunk media at all do they?
Self-reporting with that last line. Imagine considering yourself a fan of a genre and missing its central theme - fighting exploitative systems at any cost. Plenty of people in cyberpunk settings are "with the corps", but they either don't like it, or they're shitty people. Why? Because they are dehumanized, made assets of the corporations and forced to uphold the same system that abuses them.
If you genuinely want to play corpo characters who defend corpo interests out of ideological zeal, you aren't even sharing the same dimension as "the point".
@@arctomoldiness9312 says I’m self reporting. Says I missed the point. Failed to even respond to what I said. Instead answered a totally different point I didn’t make.
Gg
@@whitecreamymilk8436 I might be sleep deprived, but I rewatched the video, and if you're not referencing/critiquing Rule 00 in your original comment, then I have no idea what's the context for the quoted part of your comment or what's the point you're trying to make.
I apologize if I genuinely misunderstood you.
@@arctomoldiness9312 yes I am criticizing rule zero.
@@whitecreamymilk8436 Good to know. So turns out I didn't misunderstand anything. I'll try to rephrase my original comment with more clarity, albeit with a lot more words.
Rule 00 says nothing about what characters are or aren't in cyberpunk media. Like you say, there certainly are people who work for the system, willingly or not. But as far as players are concerned, it outlines a crucial point about the genre itself. It plainly states that the suffix "-punk" isn't there just for aesthetics. It asks of the players to, at the very least, despise the system that crushes the spirit of their characters. Even if you must work for the system, you shouldn't enjoy being stripped of your humanity while doing the same to others.
Keep in mind that the cyberpunk genre as a whole, like most dystopian settings, started as a sort of warning - in this case, that if we don't change the way our societies are structured, blindly hoping that technology will solve all of our problems is a naive mistake. The result is what you've probably heard already - "High tech, low life." Even with technology that borders on magic: implants for every body part, advanced AIs capable of superhuman problem solving, sophisticated gene engineering, etc. All of that and still poverty runs rampant, violence is at an all time high, people are used up and thrown away the second they are unable to perform their assigned tasks, etc. Old mistakes (current capitalist mistakes) repeated and writ large.
These are objectively bad circumstances to find yourself in. Like most people in any period of history, you're welcome to do whatever it takes to make a living and survive. You can run all sorts of campaigns with all sorts of characters and scenarios. But a squad of corpo agents happily oppressing the downtrodden masses and licking the boots of their corpo overlords just isn't punk, any way you slice it. It goes against the very essence of the setting, of what it means to be a cyberpunk.
To be clear, the problem isn't that you're "evil", but that you have given up the last remaining dregs of your agency and humanity. In a sense you have reached a certain fail state - instead of dying physically, you have died spiritually/mentally. Making decisions, acting for yourself, telling your story - you can't do these things if you're a barely sentient cog in the machine, eagerly awaiting your next set of orders and barking on command. At that point the campaign ends up just generically dystopian, almost closer to 1984 than cyberpunk (yes, I'm deliberately being somewhat facetious).
>mork borg
the OSR equivalent of watch dogs legion.
Totally agree on the instructions on how to play the game. Punk is about individual expression, which can include playing members of a corp, the police, or something in between. Ps, check out death in space, it's excellent.
czcams.com/video/BmTZB9nuvpY/video.html he did! I know because I bought it after watching his review
I recently did a review of Death in Space!
@@DaggetSWG My favorite punk song, "Lets Pay The Landlord On Time"
@@QuestingBeast I know, you inspired me to buy it and run it for my group:)
@@DaggetSWG Doing what someone tells you not to do is definitionally "punk." As is saying "F you!" to any definition of "punk."
you need a bigger wedding band dude.
The overtly anti-capitalism flavor is really off-putting. It’s also a mis-characterization of the capitalist system to say that freedom of commerce, and not government control/interventionism, would lead to a dystopian future. This sort of dystopian future would be more likely from the Marxism the author apparently prefers.
You new to cyberpunk?
Also what kind of bizzaro Marxism we're talking about when corporations acquire power because of it?
@@arctomoldiness9312 I don't play cyberpunk. But it's clear that significant financial interests (i.e. Rockefellers, Ford Foundation, etc., etc.) for a long time have been using their vast means to support Marxist aims that will reduce competition for themselves. Government intervention is a great tool for power because it allows for control of the populace and reduction of freedom and choice.
In capitalism, by contrast, companies are under constant threat of being dethroned from their preferred position because of the spending choices of the populace; if you don't please the consumer, you're going to go out of business; businesses are therefore servants to the consumers. Marxism/collectivist interventions protect them against this threat of annihilation.
It must be disconcerting to be military or a PO in real life, go to a game night with your buds, and find that even the RPG book hates you.
The game doesn't require hating LEOs or military; it requires hating corporate capitalist tyranny. History is full of examples of police and soldiers who rebel against authoritarianism and capitalism, I don't expect the future to be different. (Also very popular tropes in Hollywood and tv: the good honest cop vs corrupt system; the patriot solider against the sellout military industrial bureaucracy...)
The whole capitalist system thing is dumb but whatever you can ignore that too. I do like your mentality on it too.
Merk Berg isn't particularly grim or dark, it's just tryhard.
Says the guy with a Guy Fawkes mask
The design seems pretty awful in terms of usability and presentation of information. Also, with so little text in the book, was it really necessary to describe a character's morning routine and other jokes that do nothing to explain how the game is actually played?
I think you may have missed the point of the borg books. They're rules lite, theme heavy.
All the rules you actually need are on either interior covers, everything between those two covers except the adventure is there for the presentation of mood and tone moreso than to act as a reference document. It's definitely a different approach, not unlike Super Blood Harvest, but I don't think it's unwelcome.