What is Universal Century 3000?

UC3K is a role playing game campaign set in the near future of the next 200 years or so in an alternate parallel Earth very recognizable to our own. Three quarters of the 20th Century are just as we remember it in our timeline however, in the 1980's, there were some key deviations in history that caused some very different advances in the geopolitics of the Earth and in science and technological development that result in highly entertaining RPG possibilities. See the Timeline and History section of this site for complete details.

UC3K uses R. Talsorian Games' Mekton and Cyberpunk 2020 game systems. These being chosen for their simplicity, broad-spanning scope and adaptability, ease of learning and availability in .pdf format. And for some other reasons. The main one being that if you are a fan of Mecha anime. I mean shows like Gundam, Robotech, Zeorymer, Detonator Orgun or any of many other titles featuring battle-mechs that AREN'T slowed to a crawl by a pathetic inability to vent their reactor's heat and DON'T maneuver like a pregnant yak, such as in Battletech/Mechwarrior etc. Then you really should play Mekton Zeta. It is such a good mech game system that the Japanese liscensed it to make the official RPG for their Gundam franchise. It is simply the best mech game rule system there is.

The other game system, Cyberpunk 2020 is the single greatest, most extensive, purpose-built cybernetic RPG ever made. With an extensive array of cybernetic parts, options, and even full-conversion kits outlined in it's many supplement books. You can build a cyborg from the most advanced Ghost in the Shell style full-body 'borg to the most klunky, eastern-European, Soviet man-machine with a hydraulic ram-arm made from black market parts stolen from a state factory.

And the impressive array of weapons and munitions will NEVER leave you wanting for more. Literally hundreds of weapons from automatic pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles and so on, to exotics like microwave guns, hyper-vibrational and monomolecular knifes, swords and whips, EMP grenades, suitcase nuclear bombs, lasers, masers and tasers, including needlers and gas-powered airguns capable of delivering weaponized bio-chem attacks from impressive distances for an airgun.

There are over 100 vehicles from motocycles to cars and trucks to tanks! Including Blade Runner style VTOL aircars, Osprey Aircraft, and commercial to military planes, helicopter gunships and jets.

And then there's the LandMates and Battle Mechs. UC3K utilizes what I term "Scaled Warfare" meaning that conflict involving your characters will take place in every situation from SOCOM style man-to-man infiltrations and clear and sweep, to Power Armor Mechanized assault using LandMate armor technology. See the LandMate section of this site for full details. Landmates are extremely versatile battle-suits capable of tangling with light tanks and helicopters and personnel vehicles while possessing the small size and versatility to do house-to-house suppression and area-domination.

Battle mechs, as you know are vaguely humanoid war-robots capable of taking on tanks, full helicopter gunships, main battle jets, hardened emplacements and bunkers, naval vessels, star-cruisers and city-warfare. ranging from 20 to 50 feet in height and even larger for the Heavy Mechs, these nearly-unstoppable 21st Century war-machines aren't even the largest of the characters Scaled Warfare options. But they are good for when you just have to kill a whole BUSLOAD of enemies at once!

UC3K takes place in a milieu that is a mix of Masmune Shirow's famous APPLESEED universe and the space colonization setting of the early GUNDAM universe, circa 0079 to 0083. The early Gundam universe is awesomely violent and war-torn, with death around every other corner. See Gundam 0079, Stardust Memories 0080, War in the pocket 0083, 08th MS Team and Char's Counterattack for an example. Your characters will be members of an elite new kind of military unit, the "AP Team" or All Purpose Team. With military resources stretched to the very limits by constant warfare, AEGIS or The Earth Federation combines units from each of it's military branches into 4-10 man teams capable of tackling a variety of tactical and strategic situations. Sort of like TV's "The A Team" where one member is a heavy weapons and mechanical expert, one is a command-tactical officer, one is a pilot etc. Your characters will have access to unprecedented military hardware on requisition, from pistols, rifles and grenades to tanks and jets and LandMates to Battle Mechs. Even effectively becoming command crew of a Star-Cruiser Battleship capable of travel between the planets.

The timbre of the campaign will be war-time space-opera, much like Star Wars or BattleStar Galactica with elements of squad unit tactics like SOCOM or Syphon Filter and so on thrown in too. The upside is that the enemy is a clear and present danger, very similar to the nazis in WWII. They have clearly defined forces and battle lines and you can take the fight right to them in streets, jungles, deserts and even in space.

Creators Note

Since the Early nineties my friend Lee Lloyd and I have talked about making an Appleseed based Cyberpunk campaign so I can't take credit for concieving of all of Universal Century 3000. But I have the time and the drive to make our dream come to life albeit with my own little twists. Hardcore Shirow fans will probably raise an eyebrow at my decision to bring Mecha warfare into the Appleseed Universe. But I say, it DOES have a place. Try it. I think you will see that my vision of the war-torn future doesn't suffer a bit from the infusion of the Gundam Universe's space-colonization elements. And I maintain that if you can make a landmate, a full blown Battle Mech is merely a matter of scale. I won't even get into the argument that an anthropomorphic machine 50 feet high wouldn't be able to move under it's own weight. I know the physics. I just, like many great Japanese animators before me, choose to ignore those facts for the sheer pleasure of artistic expression. I challenge you to give my game a try and see if the occasional mech battle doesn't bring true, Applseed-style action and adventure into the storyline in good form. In closing, my hat's off to Lee Lloyd for never letting me forget the dream of an Appleseed Cyberpunk campaign. I hope it brings many hours of joy to all the players in my group.

Sincerely,
Eric Z. Willman

Who Is Masamune Shirow?

Masamune Shirow (士郎 正宗, Shirō Masamune) is an internationally renowned manga artist, born Masanori Ota (太田 まさのり Ōta Masanori) on November 23, 1961.

Masamune Shirow is a pen name, based on a famous swordsmith, Masamune. He is best known for the manga Ghost in the Shell, which has since been turned into three anime movies, two anime TV series and several video games. Shirow is also popular for creating erotic art. Born in the Hyōgo Prefecture capital city of Kobe, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts. While in college, he developed an interest in manga, which led him to create his own complete work, Black Magic, which was published in the manga fanzine Atlas. His work caught the eye of Seishinsha President Harumichi Aoki, who offered to publish him. The result was Appleseed, a full volume of densely-plotted drama taking place in an ambiguous future. The story was a sensation, and won the 1986 Seiun Award for Best Manga. After a professional reprint of Black Magic and a second volume of Appleseed, he released Dominion in 1986. Two more volumes of Appleseed followed before he began work on Ghost in the Shell.

Shirow is a world-famous illustrator. Indeed, for a time, he was more popular outside of Japan than inside. He was chosen as an early author to bring to the West because of many stylistic similarities between his work and traditional American comics. Ghost in the Shell is a famous anime in the West based on his work, hence his popularity. Many people mistake him for the creator of the original anime movie, but he had no major role in its production. Mamoru Oshii directed both movies, which were adaptations of several chapters of the original manga put to film. However, he did play a role in the development of the TV anime series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

This is a terribly short and injust bio for Mr. Shirow. I condider his work to be among the finest cyberpunk graphic work ever made. Check out these excellent sites for much MUCH more and better information.

Masamune Shirow Hyperpage - basic Shirow infoand reports of cool liscensed toys and stuff
Artistic Genius - Shrine to Masamune Shirow
ShirowLedge - Bio, articles, manga, interviews, links and all kinds of stuff