Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure how that helps. It's still a 'split the party' situation where (for the sake of example, 4 players and a GM) the GM and player 1 do the Net part of the adventure and players 2-4 sit around and stare, and then the GM and players 2-4 do the physical world part of the adventure while player 1 sit on their thumbs.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;941190Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure how that helps. It's still a 'split the party' situation where (for the sake of example, 4 players and a GM) the GM and player 1 do the Net part of the adventure and players 2-4 sit around and stare, and then the GM and players 2-4 do the physical world part of the adventure while player 1 sit on their thumbs.

It needs to be streamlined into actions that take place overtly in the real-world and handwave the "netrunning". It's taking a page from Interface Zero - so netrunners need to hack a system? GM assigns a difficulty based on the defense values of the location, and the netrunner simply makes a roll. Door needs to be hacked? Same thing. Hack a smart-gun linked to a cyberlimb? Same thing.

The mechanics would need to be tweaked to do it, programs would need to be given different (streamlined) values. But it could be done relatively easily. This way, Netrunners can roll with the party doing stuff in real-time without splitting the party.

Cyberpunk 2020 is terrific. It's the best system, not like those other, failed systems people run. You ever see those other systems? BORRRRing. It's just amazing. Terrific. The best. A lot of people say so.

(sorry, that type of sell seems to work for a lot of people...)

Quote from: cranebump;941377Cyberpunk 2020 is terrific. It's the best system, not like those other, failed systems people run. You ever see those other systems? BORRRRing. It's just amazing. Terrific. The best. A lot of people say so.

(sorry, that type of sell seems to work for a lot of people...)

Almost sounds like you're asking us to point out weaknesses...I can do that.

The Wired Reflexes are weaksauce.  In this case the Solo's Combat Reflexes ability makes either Kerenzikov or Sandevistan Reflex boost almost irrelevant, because those Reflex boosts aren't universal and the Solo's Meat Skill absolutely curbstomps the Cyber.  Wired Reflexes only matter in Solo v. Solo or Non-Solo v. Non-Solo combat.

I'm personally not a big fan of the archetypal skills.  Combat Sense is just too power, Authority is too situational for examples.

Quote from: CRKrueger;941402Almost sounds like you're asking us to point out weaknesses...I can do that.

The Wired Reflexes are weaksauce. t.

In contribution: If you have a ten in the relevant stat, and the relevant skill you make a mockery of the difficulty curve, where a DC 10 is 'easy', and DC 15 is average... and your minimum is 21, which is higher than 'hard'... and you succeed on nigh impossible DCs with startling regularity (DC 25-30)... but you STILL make a mockery of the difficulty curve, because you'll still fail that dead easy, impssible to miss DC 10 check a full ten percent of the time, while a spastic, blind noob (with a stat of 1 and no skill at all) can make impossible checks... ten percent of the time.

Having your fixed numbers greater than your randomizer always produces odd edge cases, though I'll note that high end D&D suffers this problem as well, in a different way.

I've purchased and familiarized myself somewhat with the game, we're running our first game in the story and I hope it gets the mood right:

The players have been hired by a megacorporation's junior executive to investigate the mysterious death of a popular rockerboy/anti-establishment figure, Easy-P, who is still owned by the franchise above him. The police are acting remarkably squirrely about things and the junior executive wants to find out if it's a hit due to the rockerboy's last album, "Nuke the Police." This will be a detective story for the most part with options to interview people, find a missing witness, and potentially break into the police station and hotel he was murdered in to get the evidence they need to find out the truth. I'll also be throwing in a bounty hunter who has been hired by a A.I. simulation of Easy-P to avenge his death that he irrationally blames on his employers. Was Easy-P killed by the cops to silence his message? Was it racially motivated? (Easy-P being a notably blue-skinned invitro baby)

Nope.

It turns out Easy-P's secretary was one of the cop's wives and was pressured into sex by him in order to keep her job, so he arranged for his murder so she'd get out from under his thumb. The wife will want to help her husband escape, the megacorp will want the two cops disposed of, and the cops can be convinced to turn on each other. A sleazy media also wants to buy the information so he can drive up his profile (and possibly cause riots against the cops--plus drive Easy P's sales through the roof as a favor to the higher ups beyond the PC's bosses).

Quote from: CRKrueger;941402Almost sounds like you're asking us to point out weaknesses...I can do that.

The Wired Reflexes are weaksauce.  In this case the Solo's Combat Reflexes ability makes either Kerenzikov or Sandevistan Reflex boost almost irrelevant, because those Reflex boosts aren't universal and the Solo's Meat Skill absolutely curbstomps the Cyber.  Wired Reflexes only matter in Solo v. Solo or Non-Solo v. Non-Solo combat.

Solo PC's aren't the audience for reflex boosts, they're already rocking the 8 REF and 8 Combat Sense.  But that 16+ is from natural talent and YEARS of training and experience in all sorts of combat across the world.  That guy is probably only 3 teirs down from Morgan Blackhand in terms of being able to demand the best jobs.  But when you take the 6 REF 4 Combat Sense "Average Grunt" Solo fresh from the Arasaka Basic Course and he goes under the knife to the tune of 6500eb and comes away with it sporting a 13+ followed by a 16+ when he can cut his Sandivestan in, your average mook just drove the bell curve of being able to keep up with those world class pros.

And the corps can afford a LOT of them.

Quote from: Spike;941404In contribution: If you have a ten in the relevant stat, and the relevant skill you make a mockery of the difficulty curve, where a DC 10 is 'easy', and DC 15 is average... and your minimum is 21, which is higher than 'hard'... and you succeed on nigh impossible DCs with startling regularity (DC 25-30)... but you STILL make a mockery of the difficulty curve, because you'll still fail that dead easy, impssible to miss DC 10 check a full ten percent of the time, while a spastic, blind noob (with a stat of 1 and no skill at all) can make impossible checks... ten percent of the time.

Having your fixed numbers greater than your randomizer always produces odd edge cases, though I'll note that high end D&D suffers this problem as well, in a different way.

Sounds like "20s always crit, 1s always botch" rule. How will I utterly destroy the game if I remove that rule? How dependent on that feature is the system?

Won't ruin it at all in my opinion.  Personally I've toyed with changing the Luck rules a little to give players a little more control over the results rather than utterly eliminating it. As it is written the Luck stat is so damn weak that it pretty much begs to be used as a Dump Stat.  


Is it just me or does CTPhipps campaign idea sound like it was borrowed from Strange Days?  Not that that's a bad thing, mind.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;941403I'm personally not a big fan of the archetypal skills.  Combat Sense is just too power, Authority is too situational for examples.

I generally agree with this. I believe in one of the Interface magazines there were really nice rules that allowed you to dual-class. They essentially made all social-based archetype skill based on RP progression not XP. So Cops, Nomads, Medias, Rockerboys, Corps. Whereas the roles that required actual technical skills still required XP to progress. The downside was that if you used your social skill in any way that did not pertain to your other role then the skill was treated at half-strength. (I never liked that bit).

So Dirty Harry was a Cop/Solo - because he was a Solo, other cops looked at Harry as a gun-bunny, but his Authority was at full-strength when he was doing aggressive law-enforcement activities. But if he had to use it for anything else - it was half.

As for Solo's Combat Sense being too powerful... I look at it like this. There's Solos, then there's everyone else. The only real advantage a Solo has is they're probably going to shoot first. So yeah - they'll probably kill you. BUT if you insist on competing, I'd say this is where Neural-Reflex boost plus quickdraw holsters, can net you a hefty +6/+7 boost to initiative (depending on your type of boost). That gives you a fighting chance.

But yeah otherwise I concede the initiative to the Solos.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;941425Solo PC's aren't the audience for reflex boosts, they're already rocking the 8 REF and 8 Combat Sense.  But that 16+ is from natural talent and YEARS of training and experience in all sorts of combat across the world.  That guy is probably only 3 teirs down from Morgan Blackhand in terms of being able to demand the best jobs.  But when you take the 6 REF 4 Combat Sense "Average Grunt" Solo fresh from the Arasaka Basic Course and he goes under the knife to the tune of 6500eb and comes away with it sporting a 13+ followed by a 16+ when he can cut his Sandivestan in, your average mook just drove the bell curve of being able to keep up with those world class pros.

And the corps can afford a LOT of them.

Exactly. I don't let any characters start with anything over 7 in their skills for this reason (unless I'm running a game for very seasoned characters).

Quote from: CTPhipps;941421I've purchased and familiarized myself somewhat with the game, we're running our first game in the story and I hope it gets the mood right:

The players have been hired by a megacorporation's junior executive to investigate the mysterious death of a popular rockerboy/anti-establishment figure, Easy-P, who is still owned by the franchise above him. The police are acting remarkably squirrely about things and the junior executive wants to find out if it's a hit due to the rockerboy's last album, "Nuke the Police." This will be a detective story for the most part with options to interview people, find a missing witness, and potentially break into the police station and hotel he was murdered in to get the evidence they need to find out the truth. I'll also be throwing in a bounty hunter who has been hired by a A.I. simulation of Easy-P to avenge his death that he irrationally blames on his employers. Was Easy-P killed by the cops to silence his message? Was it racially motivated? (Easy-P being a notably blue-skinned invitro baby)

Nope.

It turns out Easy-P's secretary was one of the cop's wives and was pressured into sex by him in order to keep her job, so he arranged for his murder so she'd get out from under his thumb. The wife will want to help her husband escape, the megacorp will want the two cops disposed of, and the cops can be convinced to turn on each other. A sleazy media also wants to buy the information so he can drive up his profile (and possibly cause riots against the cops--plus drive Easy P's sales through the roof as a favor to the higher ups beyond the PC's bosses).

Nice! You're off and running! Let us know how it turns out. Bring lots of bodybags.

Quote from: Spike;941490Is it just me or does CTPhipps campaign idea sound like it was borrowed from Strange Days?  Not that that's a bad thing, mind.

It's definitely an "homage" and only an homage because I don't quite have the personal relationships in their Lifepaths to insert an ex-singer girlfriend. Otherwise, I'd hew even closer. Hehe. I'm going to be mixing it up a bit more, though, by throwing some red herrings though. Assuming the PCs get this particular ship from sinking, I'm going to be using the event to open up other jobs along the parties that aren't royally pissed at them (and new enemies among those who are).

Ticking off the megacorp would be a bad idea, ticking off the cops would be worse. It's more about who they decide to side with, if any, which will make this adventure have consequences beyond just doing the job.

I recall shadowrun where the Cops were part of the Megacorps, but that's SR, not CP.  Certainly it might be interesting to see a cop/corp relationship not unlike that depicted in the first (only) Robocop movie... The 2020 setting actually makes that sort of more feasible, as the generational gap between classic family beat/street cop is recent enough that most police would (could) still be more loyal to the ideals than the bottom line of the guys paying their salaries.

Throw that in there as deep background, and the players choices about pissing off cops vs pissing off corps can get pretty knotty. Good street cops siding with corrupt street cops, while in this plot the mostly greedy and self serving corps are actually the 'right choice' from a moral standpoint...  talk about a needle to thread, if they ever even see the conflict before its too late...

But look at me, I'm acting like i'm running the game... my bad. Now you might guess why I make a... difficult... player in some games.  Too many ideas to run with...