I'm interested in starting a game of this but don't know if I should. I know nothing about the system, world, or what makes it good.

So if you were to tell me what Cyberpunk 2020 is about....how would you do it?

What's the highs?

What's the lows?

What are the best supplements.

More open ended than Shadowrun. But also more mundane. Weither one or the other is a strength or weakness is a YMMV.

The best supplements for CP2020 is the Nights Edge series by Ianus before they became Dream Pod 9. This turns CP2020 into a techno horror game with supernatural elements. Think Shadowrun. But deadly serious. The Necrology module trilogy is really good.

Cyberpunk 2020 is excellent for all the right reasons and only sucks around the margins.  

First, you're dealing with a complete game line, so no need to worry about further power creep or some sort of metaplot madness, or waiting for books that will never come out.  Most of the supplements are truly excellent... as in 'stand on their own even if you don't play cyberpunk 2020' levels of excellence, and it supports a fair amount of playstyles and even a few alternate settings.  The system is easily graspable and teachable.  

The biggest systemic complaints are that the rules can get weird on the margins. People with sufficient skills break the Difficulty rating system, but still miss one shot in ten (due to randomizers), and the hacking system is... well... its pretty damn ugly and cludgy, even counting for it being written in the days of telephone modems.  Like most cyberpunk style games its probably best to leave hacking to NPCs, off screen.

Best Supplements?

Man, that's a tough call.  Most of the supplements are a fucking gold mine of brilliance. I'll point out that Mike Pondsmith is working on the Witcher series of video games that everyone keeps talking about. The man knows his stuff, even when he doesn't.

Listen up you Primative Screwheads is probably the single best GM advice book ever written.
The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave duo of books are both excellent in their own ways...both if you want to explore the setting more and if you want to play an all Nomad's game.
Maximum Metal turns CP2020 into a military or mercenary game par excellence, adding Power Armor that doesn't make science cry among other things.
The Chrome book line is the ultimate set of gear-porn, without getting to repetitive, though they did suffer a bit in the later books.
THe Solo of Fortune books don't add much to the game per se, but they are excellent supplements for that are written as 'in game' magazines.

Of course, that's not counting the Gravity Fails setting book... not to my taste, but people love it for all that. Changes the setting.  Even the fan magazine, the Interface magazines weren't bad until they tried to cross pollinate with call of cthulu.

Night City gives you a good city to use, with lots of factions, adventure ideas, etc.
Protect and Serve is the Law Enforcement book.  Awesome either for your own NPC cops or for a LEO campaign.
Really get those two plus the first Chromebook or two you're good for a long time.

Lots of Adventures too...
Tales from the Forlorn Hope is a location with a ton of NPCs and adventures concerning them.
Media Junkie (ten small missions in a broader campaign) was really fun.
Night City Stories and Streetfighting are books with small adventures in them.
Atlas Games had a ton of adventures too, I remember playing Chasing the Dragon, that was pretty fun.

The system completely holds up, but the setting is - fairly obviously in terms of tech - dated. I prefer it to Shadowrun, both for the system, and the 'straight' sci-fi application of the genre, but it's a shame that the game hasn't been updated for more than 25 years. There are also some assumptions in character generation, using 'Roles' (classes) that don't entirely gel in terms of group cohesion. Why would a Corporate, a Rockerboy and a Nomad just hang out together? Netrunners too seem to be the sole people who know what to do online, although you can get around that.  

The cyberpunk 'attitude' still carries, however, (another reason why I prefer it over Shadowrun) and it's actually fun to read through the book making comparisons to the current era - is the dark future of Cyberpunk 2020 really as bad as Trumpland....

Quote from: TrippyHippy;940850The system completely holds up, but the setting is - fairly obviously in terms of tech - dated. I prefer it to Shadowrun, both for the system, and the 'straight' sci-fi application of the genre, but it's a shame that the game hasn't been updated for more than 25 years. There are also some assumptions in character generation, using 'Roles' (classes) that don't entirely gel in terms of group cohesion. Why would a Corporate, a Rockerboy and a Nomad just hang out together? Netrunners too seem to be the sole people who know what to do online, although you can get around that.  

The cyberpunk 'attitude' still carries, however, (and is another reason why I prefer it over Shadowrun) and it's actually fun to read through the book making comparisons to the current era - is the dark future of Cyberpunk really as bad as Trumpland....

I feel compelled to point out that it was, in fact, updated. 'bout ten years ago.  There were dolls involved. It wasn't pretty.

Quote from: Spike;940851I feel compelled to point out that it was, in fact, updated. 'bout ten years ago.  There were dolls involved. It wasn't pretty.

"updated".  Pfah.

CP2020 as a system is functional and straightforward.  I've done everything with it from fantasy to modern to hard sci fi.  The combat is realistic enough to keep a fast pace, but there's a line where everything turns into "skin-armored guys in heavy trenchcoats holding assault rifles" that you have to fight against.  I love the game and walk away from it occasionally.  If you're system-minded, the game has a couple flaws in representing penetration vs damage that could be improved, but they don't break the verisimilitude much.

The setting is annoyingly accurate. Update the tech yourself and squint at the timeline and you might be alarmed a bit. They just missed the dates by about 20 years.

Quote from: Spike;940851I feel compelled to point out that it was, in fact, updated. 'bout ten years ago.  There were dolls involved. It wasn't pretty.

Yep. I filed that one in the same memory banks as Paranoia 5th Edition.

I've bought the main book, Night City, and Nights Edge.

What would be some good bits of knowledge I should know about the setting to pass to my players?

How do you describe the mood?

Quote from: CTPhipps;940952I've bought the main book, Night City, and Nights Edge.

What would be some good bits of knowledge I should know about the setting to pass to my players?

How do you describe the mood?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYxt7cwDk4E

Quote from: CTPhipps;940952I've bought the main book, Night City, and Nights Edge.

What would be some good bits of knowledge I should know about the setting to pass to my players?

How do you describe the mood?

To be honest? You can chose to ditch the setting pretty well if you want and just use the rules.  Nomads are pretty generic when you think about it, working for any counterculture group with strong bonds and a love of motorcycles, Solos are just guys who like to fight for a living and so forth.

The mood? Not-quite-post-apocalyptic?  A bit like the original Mad Max or Robocop, law exists on teh fringes and is often almost indistinguishable from the criminals. Corporations run everything like fuedal kings (Robocop again), and the players are the disenfranchised to chose to take an active role in the world as they come to it, rather than numbing themselves with drugs and TV... not that they necessarily don't indulge in either.

I'd love to play Cyberpunk 2020 myself as well.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;940852The combat is realistic enough to keep a fast pace, but there's a line where everything turns into "skin-armored guys in heavy trenchcoats holding assault rifles" that you have to fight against.

That really is the only real warning I would give. Like many games, a suitable min-maxer can break CP2020 (in this case, breaking means finding a combo that makes the game unfun for those who don't do the same). For CP2020, it is the fact that heavy weapons and armor piercing out-class defenses, so pretty much the first person to shoot wins, in which case the Solos (who get a massive initiative bonus) are the only class to play. Likewise, the Empathy stat controlling the maximum amount of cybernetics you can have means if your players are min-maxers, you will have lots of maxed out EMP, maxed out REF solos with wired reflexes.

Also, like Shadowrun, they never figured out how to make hacking anything other than boring for everyone but the one guy who specialized in it (who is bored for the rest of the time).

Other than that, the game works great. There's some datedness (both in "what we thought the future would look like" and "what we thought would be cool ~2020), but no more so than other sci-fi with people expecting robots and laserguns, but not foreseeing the internet or smartphones.

Quote from: CTPhipps;940952I've bought the main book, Night City, and Nights Edge.

What would be some good bits of knowledge I should know about the setting to pass to my players?

How do you describe the mood?

I would *highly* recommend the following:

1) "Home of the Brave" which is the America sourcebook. It also has alternate Lifepath for military characters (and it's *beefy*). Most of it is fluff but it nails down the conceits of a much larger perspective than the core-book on what CP2020 is like on a larger scale.

2) "Serve and Protect" AND "Wildside" - covers criminal and law-enforcement in CP2020. With *tons* of rules/gear/equipment for Cops and Fixer roles.

But before you do any of that: Take the advice given upthread - get "Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads". Read it. Digest it. Start tossing dice.

CP2020's system is fast-paced, easy to learn but very gritty and lethal. If you're wanting to do mech-combat, or more cinematic stuff you'll need some other books (or start pulling in Mekton mechanics from Roadstrikers which uses the same basic rules as CP2020)

Quote from: Willie the Duck;941037Also, like Shadowrun, they never figured out how to make hacking anything other than boring for everyone but the one guy who specialized in it (who is bored for the rest of the time).

Easy. Just ditch the moronic "It all happens instantly in the net!" part and just have the netrunner moving through at around the same pace as the people outside. Its what did.