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Utopia

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Utopia is a neo-futuristic roleplaying game, drawing on elements of cyberpunk and speculative science fiction. In Utopia, you will make some decisions about your setting, create a character with goals and ambitions and work to achieve those goals, while dealing with whatever challenges the world throws at you.

SOLO PLAY - GM-LESS GROUP PLAY - GM'D PLAY

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What is Utopia?

The world of Utopia is a world that has recovered from a cataclysmic event known as “The Fall”, which altered the landscape of the world as we know it. 100 years later, the world has rebuilt itself into a place of technology, innovation and hope for a bright future. However, despite advances in nearly every field, from medicine, science and biology, to robotics, automation and farming, conflict remains ingrained in every level of society. The gap between the rich and poor widens more with each passing day, while thousands of people go without basic necessities and medical care. Corporate power has expanded to a point where corporations maintain their own private military forces and political candidates maintain corporate sponsorships. Rampant computerization has led to new extremes of media integration in everyone’s daily lives, while new theological struggles around what constitutes a living person have emerged with innovations in cybernetics, cloning and artificial intelligence.

The world is a complicated place. Some people are trying to get ahead, right wrongs, fight the power, climb the corporate ladder, discover miracle cures, invent new tech, help others, get rich or become powerful. Others are just trying to survive.

Welcome to Utopia.

The Character is the Thing

Characters are the lifeblood of Utopia. Unlike other tabletop roleplaying games where the game master drives the story, in Utopia you'll create goals and ambitions for your character that you'll work towards accomplishing. It's these goals that will push the story forward and direct your gameplay. With each goal you accomplish, your character will become more skilled and knowledgable.

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A Setting Built for Customization

One of the first things you'll do when you start playing Utopia is customize your setting. You'll make decisions about your city's government, how AI's and artificial humans are treated and what the landscape beyond your city looks like. But the customization doesn't end there. Whether you want to play in an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia, a utopian solarpunk paradise or a post-war wasteland, Utopia has all the right blanks for you to fill in.

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What to Expect From the Game

Different ways to play:

  • Solo play, GMless group play, GM'd group play (you can read about this in the preview)
  • One shots, limited scope adventures or long campaigns

A new, easy to understand system:

  • A rolling system utilizing d10s and d6s to create dice pools with no static modifiers
  • The danger system, where the choices your character makes influences the difficulty of their rolls
  • A confrontation system for non-combat encounters to challenge your non-combat characters

Other highlights to look forward to in Utopia:

  • The newsfeed - a system for generating events that make your city feel alive
  • 22 character specializations
  • 27 character origins
  • Rules to create your own custom Utopia content (including character specializations and origins)
  • A wide array of weapons, equipment, tech and cybernetic enhancements to outift your character
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Reviews (3)
Discussions (10)
Customer avatar
Richard H August 29, 2023 9:46 am UTC
PURCHASER
Really enjoying my first playthrough, but wonder if you (or anyone) could clarify what the Difficulty rating (1-5) of a job affects aside from pay. Should it be added as temporary Danger to rolls related to the job, ot should it affect the number of skill tests required?
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Customer avatar
David M August 29, 2023 1:48 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Richard!
Rules-as-written, it only affects the pay, since a low-difficulty or low-danger job could result in a lot of skill rolls depending on the situation. However, that's definitely something you can adjust for whatever works best for you. I frequently increase the number of rolls when Navigating a Location when I'm on a job with a higher difficulty.

When the game was in playtesting, I had my testers test some more rigid rules around job difficulty/danger/pay, but most testers agreed that they wanted some freedom to adjust things on the fly for whatever worked best. So I ended up with each of those things: difficulty/pay, danger and number of skill checks being separate decisions the player can make rather than being linked together.
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Customer avatar
Richard H August 29, 2023 2:42 pm UTC
PURCHASER
That makes sense, thanks, and I definitely agree with keeping the rules more abstract. I don't generally enjoy money driven systems, but the Resources mechanic does a really good job of giving you reasons to take jobs/steal etc. without getting too bogged down.
Customer avatar
Richard H August 20, 2023 3:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'm looking to start a solo game as a Data Jack, and was wondering about computers/decks. I take it that the Hacking Relay functions as a cyberdeck for hacking, but would I require anything else for the Program AI or Program Software actions?
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Customer avatar
David M August 20, 2023 6:33 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Richard!
You don't need anything special to do programming. A computer to perform programming actions with is something you have access to as a Datajack (whether that's your own personal computer, a deck or accessing a public terminal) without it being a specific piece of equipment and being on your character sheet in the same way we don't keep track of mundane items like clothing that have no stats. The only time you might choose for it to be more notable is if you experience a complication that causes you to lose it.

When I was writing the game, I went with a relay to run subroutines as the upgradable equipment piece instead of a deck like Shadowrun uses to leave it a little more open for people to imagine their own setup whether that's something portable like a deck, or a big computer and monitor setup that goes heavy on the hacker vibes.
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Customer avatar
Richard H August 20, 2023 6:48 pm UTC
PURCHASER
That makes sense, thanks. I was coming to it with a Shadowrun/Cyberpunk 2020 approach, so expecting the deck to be a big deal, but this actually fits better with the Murblood character I'm making - scavenged relay for skimming and a home computer built out of old parts. Thanks for the reply, looking forward to starting my game.
Customer avatar
Richard H June 28, 2023 2:23 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Did people who solod this use external oracles, or is the game's own system enough?
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Customer avatar
Bowden P June 28, 2023 4:15 pm UTC
PURCHASER
It worked pretty well. I did have to borrow creatures from other sources (Baciagalupi's cheshires from Windup Girl), but otherwise, it provided a lot.
Customer avatar
Fabian N March 14, 2023 12:42 am UTC
PURCHASER
I just finished reading the rules and Im eager to give this a try.
However, I have 2 question:

1) On page 45, under AI Actions, the rules state that the skill roll uses the ai level for additional d6, however on page 151, the rules say that when in a cybernetic, the AI uses the ai skill level for additional d6. Is it intended that an AI performs worse when installed in a cybenetic? (or is this merely a typo/do i misunderstand the rules here)

2) On pages 123 (armor) and 124 (power armor) I am unsure about the wording regarding the defensive dice that the armors provide. Does "Start combat with 4d6 defensive dice" actually mean that you roll 4d6 at the start of combat and if you are lucky, you can use up to 24 dice according to the rule on page 54, or does it just mean that you can use 4 dice? Similar for power armor: Does "Roll 1d6 defensive dice any time you would take a wound" mean that you reduce the damage by 1d6 times 1d6 (potentially up to 36 damage) or...See more
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Customer avatar
David M March 14, 2023 2:01 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Fabian!

1) AIs - This is a little typo. On pg 45, it should say that the AI adds a number of d6s equal to the AI Skill level.
The original design gave the AIs a number of skills and d6s equal to their level, but that made them as powerful as a player character, which made life a little bit too easy for our software programmers to just build AIs to do everything in the game. Thank you for pointing this out - I'll mark it to be updated in the next revision.

2) Armor Defensive Dice - This means for regular armor, you start with a little pool of defensive dice that you can spend whenever you want to reduce the severity of a wound you're going to take. So if are wearing Tactical Armor, you start with 3 d6's (defensive dice - these function the same as the dice you get from the Take Cover combat action). If you are going to take a medium wound, you might want to use one of those to try and reduce the severity. You roll the die, reduce the severity of the wound by the number you just...See more
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Customer avatar
Fabian N March 14, 2023 3:50 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi David,
thanks for the quick reply - this make it clear to me.
In case you do release a revised version, I would propose to change the wording from "Start combat with 4d6 defensive dice" to simply "Start combat with 4 defensive dice" to avoid confusion.

Customer avatar
Gillian M April 07, 2021 8:49 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I have a question about starting Danger. Does Danger level start at zero or is there some calculation derived from the inital Newsfeeds Severity?
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Customer avatar
David M April 07, 2021 9:05 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Gillian!
Your danger always starts at 0. There are some newsfeed events that point to optional special rules that increase danger temporarily, but that will always be on top of your character's danger. Hopefully that makes sense, haha.
Customer avatar
Alvin G March 26, 2021 11:12 pm UTC
PURCHASER
"Taking action" question(p.29). "You roll above the difficulty and you are successful." Later... "You roll below the difficulty you are unsuccessful in completing your task."

What if you roll the difficulty level? My assumption would be that if you have to roll above the difficulty to pass, and if you get equal or below you fail. How do you interpret this?
Reply
Customer avatar
David M March 26, 2021 11:37 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Alvin,

Rolling the same as the difficulty is considered a failure. I'll take a look at adjusting that wording to make it a little more clear when I do the next update.
Customer avatar
Eleanor H February 28, 2021 12:00 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I have a question about crits: it says "Whenever you roll a 10 on any d10, if your roll was successful, you can choose an
additional effect to apply to your roll". Does this include the Difficulty dice or is it just on the roll for the player character's skill?
Reply
Customer avatar
David M February 28, 2021 3:26 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Eleanor!
Crits and Complications only apply to the characters rolls and not the rolls to set difficulty. This is a good clarification that I'll make sure to tack on when I do an update.
Customer avatar
Bowden P January 24, 2021 2:04 am UTC
PURCHASER
And another question: do starting characters begin with 0 Bravado? Or some fixed number?
Looking forward to the print version.
And thanks again.
Reply
Customer avatar
David M January 24, 2021 2:13 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Characters begin with zero bravado and gain it throughout play. You can choose to gain a bravado when you crit, you get 1 when you complete one of your character's goals and some special abilities will also give you bravado.

A random tidbit: if you like the idea of having a lot of Bravado, try creating a Lowborn Skulker. They're basically bravado machines. :D
Customer avatar
Richard S January 23, 2021 5:07 pm UTC
PURCHASER
This looks good and I aim to take it for a solo spin soon. My only question is how do I determine how many adversaries there might be in a conflict? Have you tested how many is reasonable/difficult/insane for a solo character?
Reply
Customer avatar
David M January 23, 2021 5:40 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Thank you for your comment!

There are some rules regarding running combat with multiple enemies on page 56 - with simple and complex variants. The simple variant is easier to manage and not accidentally overwhelm your character when you're playing solo.

Once you run combat a couple times, you'll get a feeling for the difficultly pretty quickly. Generally speaking though, whatever your highest combat stat is (melee weapons, ranged weapons, etc.), is going to determine what an even challenge for your character is. So if you have 2 points in unarmed combat, an enemy or group of enemies (in the simple multi-enemy rules) with a difficulty of 2d10+2d6 should be an even challenge for you, with +3d6 being a harder challenge and +4d6 being extremely difficult. That being said, difficulty is rolled, so you can end up with unexpectedly strong or unexpectedly weak enemies (which is why combat includes rules for running away haha).

The complex rules are a little more nuanced in regards...See more
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Customer avatar
Richard S January 23, 2021 5:57 pm UTC
PURCHASER
A perfect & swift answer. Thanks David :-)
Customer avatar
Bowden P January 21, 2021 1:48 am UTC
PURCHASER
This is interesting, but why are so many of the special abilities limited to three times a week?
Reply
Customer avatar
David M January 21, 2021 2:40 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Thank you for you question!

The abilities that are restricted to 3 times per week are either abilities that could be used in every situation (like the Monk's meditation ability to gain advantage on a roll), or abilities that could be used in repetition to entirely cancel out certain things in the game (like the Biofarmers herb pouch which provides healing, or the Exorcist's bypass which allows you to replace another roll with your engineering skill). Having a limit on the number of uses also forces the player to consider when to use their ability and when to reserve it for a clutch moment.

That being said, anything that's labelled as special equipment can also benefit from tech upgrades, specifically the power storage module which will double the number of uses per week.
Reply
Customer avatar
Bowden P January 21, 2021 8:01 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thank you!
I hope to try some solo play this weekend and have a review for you.
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File Last Updated:
January 12, 2021
This title was added to our catalog on January 12, 2021.
Publisher
David Markiwsky Art
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