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.
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. :D
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. :D
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. :D
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...
The game is going pretty well so far with the PCs having beaten the crap out of a bunch of cops sent after them but not actually killed any as well as escaped with vital evidence on the subject of Easy-P's death. I've expanded the conspiracy a bit with the fact they're having to protect a witness who actually didn't see as much as she thinks she saw, the fact Easy-P wasn't killed but had switched faces with Johnny Silverhand before his execution (who I'm treating as the Bowie of the setting--which will make things worse), and this may have all been a set up.
Either way, the players are really enjoying it.
Currently, they're leaning toward helping the cops get away with the murder but taking down Easy-P for his own murder. The PCs are showing decidedly "mercenary with a heart" tendencies with the fact they have nothing against the megacorporations personally and would love to work with them but have lines they won't cross--which is good for things.
I think for the next game, I'm going to do the bombing plot from "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided" except replace the terrorists with the city's poor than cyborgs.
FYI - As I understand it, the corporations generally have their own private police/security in their areas while the rest of Night City has to deal with their own crappy municipal police.
Shh.... I haven't actually played Mankind Divided yet, despite getting it on pre-order... no spoilers!
Quote from: CTPhipps;941747I think for the next game, I'm going to do the bombing plot from "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided" except replace the terrorists with the city's poor than cyborgs.
That's pretty much the plot of a lot of cyberpunk stuff. There's whole reams of it, vaguely socialist dystopian "people respond to the excesses of the rich with revolt" themes. I'd recommend looking at some of the French Revolution stuff, and make sure you have NET54 covering it (and manipulating it through the media) excessively.
QuoteFYI - As I understand it, the corporations generally have their own private police/security in their areas while the rest of Night City has to deal with their own crappy municipal police.
Pretty much, although CP2020 doesn't have the formalized extraterritoriality of the SR setting, so TECHNICALLY the cops have some authority, but in practice the higher ups have all been bought off or are just openly allied with some corp or other, so the cops don't get to do much.
My game inspired a funny little list....except it's not really all that funny at all when you think about it.
TOP SIGNS WE'RE LIVING IN A CYBERPUNK FUTURE (http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/01/top-signs-were-living-in-cyberpunk.html)
I'll need a citation for point 31...
Quote from: Spike;942231I'll need a citation for point 31...
Hahaha. :)
Quote from: Spike;942231I'll need a citation for point 31...
Talk to city planners in Vancouver and Miami.
Quote from: CRKrueger;942258Talk to city planners in Vancouver and Miami.
You want me to listen to... let me see if I get this straight... City Government beaurocrats. To get 'da troof' on anything????
You mean some of the least competent people in a field of generally incompetent people... I'm talking politicians here, son... about something affecting the real world?
That's...
...wow.
Do you even Cyberpunk, bro?!!??
Because, if you Cyberpunk, why do I have to ask if you Cyberpunk?
Quote from: CTPhipps;942222My game inspired a funny little list....except it's not really all that funny at all when you think about it.
TOP SIGNS WE'RE LIVING IN A CYBERPUNK FUTURE (http://unitedfederationofcharles.blogspot.com/2017/01/top-signs-were-living-in-cyberpunk.html)
#4 is incorrect, but I wouldn't be able to prove it to you.
#20 isn't right if you accept the lexicon of Special Forces from the US perspective. They have SWAT, and parts that might even be considered ESWAT, but they're not Special Forces. There's a different game in SF that they don't touch.
#27 doesn't take into consideration the price point of those cars.
#32 would be even better if the citizens were provided with them by the state. Think SLA industries.
#35 isn't a "may" statement.
#40 I think (as I mentioned earlier) they're actually about 15 years off. But it's still on track for their timeline!
I like the list, and I'll poke through the rest of the Blog.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;942314#4 is incorrect, but I wouldn't be able to prove it to you.
Its on! That's right, baby! Time to argue pointless side commentary to the DETH!!!!
Re-read the statement here, I'll re-order it for ya: In the opinion of the Powers That Be, Online Blogs and Journalists are a threat.
Russian Hackers Stole the Election we much? Fake News is the New Anonymous. Wikileaks is hiding out in a Foreign Embassy? Snowden? The former editor of Brietbart serving the new president directly?
Tell me again that online... excuse me, UNDERGROUND hackers and journalists aren't threatening the powers that be... in the opinion of both the underground and the powers!
Quote#20 isn't right if you accept the lexicon of Special Forces from the US perspective. They have SWAT, and parts that might even be considered ESWAT, but they're not Special Forces. There's a different game in SF that they don't touch.
Semantics. Most people can tell the difference between Special Forces and special forces. We say the russian Spetznatz are Russian Special Forces, and nobody thinks they wear green berets and have the Duke. Besides, if you understand out the word is actually meant to be used, Commando is EVEN MORE ANNOYING to use without the grammer nazis swarming ya, and who needs that noise?
Quote#27 doesn't take into consideration the price point of those cars.
Irrelevant, as in a cyberpunk world you either can't afford anything, or you don't care about price. There is no middle class in cyberpunk!
Quote#32 would be even better if the citizens were provided with them by the state. Think SLA industries.
A: SLA Industries is not classic Cyberpunk. Awesome on toast? Sure, but an alternate reality created from the mind of a madman being treated by unethical doctors using illegal chemicals in Britons free socialized health care, run by his own twisted ego as a demonic corporate god, with the man's own fractured psyche becoming the incarnation of evil itself opposed to said demonic corporate god...well, that's a far stretch to... cyberpunk.
B: You're thinking Brit-punk. Or...um... Brit-c-punk? Bryterpunk?
Quote#35 isn't a "may" statement.
Is not argument. Is grammer-nazi semantic bullshit. Besides, Uncertainty about what is true and what is propaganda from the powers that be is very cyberpunk.
Quote#40 I think (as I mentioned earlier) they're actually about 15 years off. But it's still on track for their timeline!
???
Were you trying to pad your post? Its 15 years off, but still on track? Either it's 'in time' for 2020, or its not. Pick one.
We just need to give Johnsons and Johnsons mercenaries and their own arcology for Edgerunners to raid for the secret to baby oil.
(http://i.imgur.com/k0pv0.jpg)
That's it man, you done killed the thread dead. Where's ma fork, I'ma stick it!
Currently, we're on the next adventure where there is a large amount of inspiration from Mankind Divided (boo, hiss on cancelling the sequel!).
There's a train bombing which is blamed on political extremists operating in the city. These individuals are refugees which come from, well, the rest of the United States because the rest of the country is a shithole. The PCs managed to talk to one of the bombers before they blow up (by remote) and discover it seems to have been orchestrated by the cops.
But is it the corporate-run PMC who want to get the newly created Refuge Zone dismantled to build some high-priced corporate real estate or the actual NCPD who have their own reasons to frame the refugees? Or it the actual terrorist group forming with some of the ex-Nomads in the Zone? In this game, I'm going with the party responsible being a single lone actor who is hoping to start a war to draw attention to the conflict between Nomads and city-dwellers.
So far, we're having a lot of fun!
I remember getting the book back in the early 90s and being excited to run it. Took over an hour to create characters though and my friend got his face blown off by a thug with a submachine gun in the first encounter. The high lethality seemed out of whack with the amount of time and effort it took to create a character.
Quote from: Voros;943955I remember getting the book back in the early 90s and being excited to run it. Took over an hour to create characters though and my friend got his face blown off by a thug with a submachine gun in the first encounter. The high lethality seemed out of whack with the amount of time and effort it took to create a character.
I agree that is a major flaw of the game.
ANY first time character creation is going to take extra time. I can knock out a CP2020 character in about five to ten minutes. I'm not sure what is so time consuming for you. Here, let me break down the steps.
Pick a Class(role) from a group of about ten.
Assign points to your attributes, either from dice rolls or a fixed pool, determined by the GM
Assign 40 points to ten skills from your Class
Assign points equal to INT+REF to your personal choice of skills. THis will be between 4-20 points.
THe ONLY table look up you have: compare Role/Class signature skill on table to determine starting cash. Anything under... 6 (from memory here) is in the first column, usually 1500-2000 cash. Max is 10k cash at ten skill.
Buy Equipment/Cyberware.
Optional time wasters: Roll on LIfepath every year of age from 16 up. Most starting characters will be fairly young because Cyberpunk!
Sell your soul to Either the MIlitary or Corporations (or BOTH) for an extra 10k starting cash to spend. The Time here is buying shit and working with the GM to find out how bad selling your soul will actually be.
Yes, the big time sink is the Lifepath, but that is optional, and even then can be sped up pretty good... roll a fistfull of d10s to start equal to the number of years you need to roll for, use the even/odd numbers on the original roll to answer the either/or split rather than rolling a second time for it as all of the choices in the first roll take at least two faces on the d10.
I changed the above game and ended revealing all the chaos and rioting was one lone Netrunner trying to drive up his stock shares.
I'm currently working on an adaptation of the Greenwar module where the Pcs are recruited to help take over a company for another. It'll be fun to send the "heroes" on a mission to recruit, blackmail, and execute people in the company so it'll be vulnerable to a hostile takeover. Also, whether or not they'll betray their Soviet "ally."
Another adventure I'm working on right now is one that's giving me fits because it's supposed to be something that takes the PCs out of their comfort zone. The PCs heading to a nice gated corporate community (and by gated we mean lasers and robots) where there's been a murder in a manner much more befitting Night City and they've been DISCREETLY hired to investigate. They get to experience life among the corporate artificial elite's families while uncovering all the dirty little secrets recorded by their Smart Homes and plants among them.
Quote from: Spike;944097ANY first time character creation is going to take extra time. I can knock out a CP2020 character in about five to ten minutes. I'm not sure what is so time consuming for you. Here, let me break down the steps.
[...]
Assign points equal to INT+REF to your personal choice of skills. THis will be between 4-20 points. [...]
Ew. That favors INT and REF stats without much reason to me. Are those stats normally neglected? Or is it setting ingrained rational like EDU in CoC. Or is it more "DEX the Arbitrary God Stat" in most WotC D&D, where the goodies are piled on?
Basically, how badly would I break the game if I just said, "roll 4d6, reroll (but don't count) 6s."
Reflexes and Empathy (because empathy fuels your cybernetics cap) are pretty much god stats if you play a combat-focused game.
Quote from: Opaopajr;944602Ew. That favors INT and REF stats without much reason to me. Are those stats normally neglected? Or is it setting ingrained rational like EDU in CoC. Or is it more "DEX the Arbitrary God Stat" in most WotC D&D, where the goodies are piled on?
Basically, how badly would I break the game if I just said, "roll 4d6, reroll (but don't count) 6s."
For secondary skills? Not at all. I think most CP fans have long considered that relatively little rule one of the 'bad calls' in the game's design, as REF adn INT are already heavily favored stats, between them they've already got most of the skills in the the game, and REF is central to combat, and INT central to hacking. Ive seen a number of people simply assign a fixed number of skill points rather than use that rule. It may even be mentioned in an Interface magazine...