Sourcebook Usefulness and ongoing story complaints

It seems that the RPG books were designed before these events happened. I too was at first surprised that those events weren't mentioned at all. But it seems that the time where the RPG starts is right before these important events happen. We can still run or play campaigns taking place during the aforementioned events you brought up but it felt weird that CB & Modi didn't update the lore of the books where these events would have effected the most.

There is supposed to be an O-12 & Corporation books coming out after the main factions. So those questions should be answered in them. However since the Ariadna book didn't mention who runs the Tesseum trade it wouldn't surprise me if your questions remain unanswered. I personally hope that Modiphius & CB do reveal these details to us and not leave us in the dark.

Many people have been tweaking the rules or been taking advantage of the lack of details in certain categories. It makes playing the RPG easier and allows more freedom in creating a story and branching out the world of Infinity without crossing any boundary lines set by the official lore. Still for someone who likes to study lore, I too find the lack of certain details of the universe not being covered disappointing. Regardless I'll make due with what we got and keep up to date on any important story progression that CB pushes for campaigns that come after them.

 

Suggestion: use the backer's characters as movers and shakers, instead of pesudoNPC/enemies for the players. Bala Perdida can be the leader of a mercenary outfit, for example, instead of a gun for hire.

 

Honestly, does the CEO of Alphabet really matter today? Or WalMart (Walmart has a bigger 'Gross Domestic Product' than Poland!)? Or [insert any other megacorp name]?

If you are having the CEO of any corporation show up in your game as anything other than a target (whether target to be protected or to be killed), you don't really get covert operations.

Just like the President of the US doesn't know (m)any operatives that the CIA is running around, the CEO of a company should not be anywhere near Infinity/Cyberpunk/Shadowrun operations.

It would have, but CB kept the Uprising so secret that the entire YJ splatbook had to be re-written to account for the Uprising!

 

It would make sense for why the release of the Yu Jing faction book for the RPG is taking so lone and being the last of the major factions to come out. I guess O-12 would be next after the Asian giant bursts out of the gate.

 

There is mention of many names, organizations, family groups, etc when it comes to specific locations (you can see it in all the splat books). So I don't get that part of the criticism. Do they have extensive backgrounds or histories? No. They don't need to. They've given you enough bones to add muscle to to flesh it out to what you as a GM need. The RPG books are more big picture in nature and that's a nice change from the individual and biased fluff of the CB books. Hell, you want specific people to use... go through the CB rulebooks. There's a bunch of people named and quoted.

As for current events. Those aren't hard to do by yourself. There's a whole Paradiso book coming that should be a nice guide to playing historical events (you can also use the Campaign: Paradiso book as well) and the current 3rd offensive. Same goes for the Uprising. There's already a fluff book for that by CB. There might be an adventure for those but it wasn't part of the Kickstarter ones (fulfilling those will come first before making anything new).

 

First, if I need to have a copy of the infinity rulebooks (specially the fluff books you need to pay for) to get the full picture, then the RPG is badly desgined as a product.

Now, regarding the extensive backgrounds or histories... Examples are needed, and there are several famous organizations that need to be explained with some detail. For example, Equinox needs to be fleshed out in the Haqquislam book, not just mentioned with some spice thrown in as the Govad's crucible. The same can be said about some above board organizations, at least one per splatbook, because frankly I have no idea on how a Yu Jingese macrocorp runs, and I might need it, the same way that I might have little actual idea on how an Hexaedron-controlled PanO corporation would go around (aside from cheesy 80's-90's movies about CIA-controlled businesses as fronts).

That is, of course, far away from asking for all the main corporations be fleshed out. But as always, some archetipical ones are actually needed, so an experienced GM that has his library of corps can use those, while a new one (or even one more used to fantasy or space opera settings where corporations are almost never even mentioned) has a useful template to look at and differenciate the different business models between the main factions.

 

@xagroth The only reason I can think as to why the macro or mega corps are not expounded on is because there is supposed to be a Corporate faction book for the RPG coming out in the future. And concerning the RPG as a badly designed product I can understand taht stance. Some aspects of it were confusing to me or "why do it this way when this is much easier?" The good news is that GM's or groups can tweak the rules to make it run smoother but that is also the bad news. The product shouldn't need to be tweaked in order for it to be run smoothly.
Have you come across any other RPG corebook/rule set that works well? I'm trying to find a good set to use or at least give a try at running an Infinity campaign. Anyone here played or now of any RPG who's rule set/order was easy or engaging to play?

 

You don't need the Infinity rulebooks for anything. They're just a supplemental piece if you want some micro details that the RPG doesn't give because everything is presented in macro. The RPG already gives you all the base details one needs to know about the setting and more that the infinity rulebooks never covered in great detail.

I don't know where you and odium misconstrued my comment that you need the Infinity books to play the RPG. You don't. You got the basics and a lot more to build off of already. Now if you did want some micro or minutia details the Infinity books give you a good way to find and use them. If not... just make your own.

@odium Not what I was saying at all. As I've said before the RPG gives you the details you need. More on a macro level then micro but it isn't hard to make up your own micro details that fit within the macro. That's easier on a world building scale and makes it easier for GMs to insert their own stuff within while still being true to canon (if they want). The skirmish game can provide some smaller details if you really want it but it's hardly what I call necessary. Really, there are sections in the RPG splatbooks that have provided more in depth details then the game rulebooks have never done (Aleph and Haqqislam being the highlights).

Personally none of this is an issue to me because I don't need all that info. I don't need be handheld for everything. I don't need to really know how a Yu Jing corporation really works (if I did I would just borrow what we already know about Chinese corporations). Same can go for a Hexaedron front business. Just grab up some real history of CIA fronts (instead of using cheesy 80s-90s movies). Look into Air America (quite a few book on it) and a lot more. I have no issue filling in the blanks with my own ideas or some borrowed ones (what world builders already do anyways).

As Golem has also pointed out there is more stuff still to come. A whole spltbook on corporations (probably only going to cover the big one with maybe some details on the smaller ones), one about Paradiso, the Tohaa, and the Combined Army. If we're just talking about the core book well duh they're isn't going to be a whole lot of smaller details. That's where you get all the intro stuff. Want something more specific and in depth. Well there's some books that also do that :P

 

A problem with hyper detailed RPG books are the fact it doesn't leave you any room.

Bakunin is small enough that all of the modules could be 100% identified. But when I want to build a module of Lizard-people who disguise themselves as humans when they interact with the outside world (yes they work for the Black Hand, no I can't confirm that they're secretly running several governments) I can't if it's all 100% detailed.

I find the books provide a nice middle ground: enough detail that I know that my Lizard people module is technically possible and the social rules it would need to navigate not so much detail that I don't have room to build my own world.