Whoops! Messed up the link to the last thread.
>>97554123

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>>97649961
>How do you incorporate adverse weather into your games?
Leave this one to me

I need your opinions on something

Does net arch hacking as netrunner suck?
I've been doing it with my netrunner player for the last couple of missions.

When I do one, it stops the game for everyone but me and the netrunner. The other players have to sit there and twiddle their thumbs.

You may say, what if you have a fight on two fronts, where the netrunner hacks and the other players fight people off?
To that I respond: how often would that happen? And further, that's 2 different battlwfields I have to keep track of and I'd be slow as hell until I get some experience with it.

Next, it's plain just not fun. It's not the fast resolving combat, it's got me and the netrunner poring over the rules to look at and confirm if we're doing it right. Which makes it even more of a slow slog.

Do you face these issues? What do you do to solve it?

At this moment I'm thinking of making it like a pokemon battle where the runner buys the programs and uses them to fight other programs. I haven't worked out the mechanics yet, but I think that would resolve the thing a lot faster.

>>97650596
which system?

>>97649961
>>97650596

Forgot to answer the thread question:
>How do you incorporate adverse weather into your games?

Well, I haven't yet. I'm thinking of running games where the weather gets worse as the mission progresses

>Badlands errand has a freak dust-storm, car gets hit by a rock going 200 mph right in the fuel line
>Scavs are closing in, players have to find some shelter and prepare for a fight

Anotjer one which is a little more elaborate is
>Once in a decade hurricane passes through night city
>All the areas except the corporate areas are flooded to hell
>The sea wall is barely coping. You know what this means?
>Time to loot inaccessible upper floors or some combat zone buildings, which happen to be full of autonomous defense!

>>97650613
Ah fuck me didn't even mention it: it's RED

>>97650596
>>97650631
Is your player dead set on playing a runner? If not I'd talk to them about making a new character. Netrunning dragging down games is a common complaint of the system.

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So, my RPG club sticks to the Dungeon Crawl Classics ecology because it fits the goofy drop-in style, but turns out there's a cyberpunk hack for it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JS389vKS_2eIPY-TrR034TI3_Vh_apFR/view

Here's my sizzle premise for a zero-level cyberpunk funnel (each player has four characters. Most of them are expected to die amusingly)

>In 2053, the Osaka Orangeade Concern’s Chapter 11 filing was disrupted by a blackout that resulted in many of their liquidated assets falling behind the couch. One of these assets was the Osaka Orangeade Multi-Function Sub-Arcology Block, which left its 1K+ residents living in a legal gray zone.

>The “Orangies” have continued to live in the structure, making ad-hock agreements with utility providers, while numerous small businesses of likewise-ambiguous legal status operate within it thanks to the extremely non-specific charter. The building is now referred to as the Orange Box. A massive stockpile of Orangeade powder provides the building's fallback staple foodstuff, containing almost all the vitamins and minerals required to not die.

>The only thing keeping the Box from winding up on the open market is it’s residence threshold; if the population falls below 1K at any point, Squatter's Rights no longer apply and the building is up for grabs. Now, in 2061, vulture capitalists are taking another crack at the Box in the form of that most nefarious of companies, Spirit (formally, Spirit Seasonal Apparel and Aviation Concern) via their plausibly-deniable security sub-division, the Jack-0-Lantern gang.

>The Jacks quickly seized Floor 37, and the harassment and intimidation is escalating. No help is coming. The only thing that can save the Orange Box now is a gaggle of level-zero gonks.

>Welcome to the Sprawl, gonk.

>>97650967
The player was the one that wanted to change it exactly for this reason. The other players requested them to not make a new character because they'd gotten into a roleplay groove with them.

I'm thinking of doing something small but complex to substitute it, because this player really loves puzzles. Plus, I'm doing quickhacks as well and everyone seems to like the additional danger of having their neuroports hacked.

>>97651066
This is a cool idea! I had a similar idea with the players being trapped for weeks in a Block that's self sufficient, like a kowloon walled city type shit.

>>97650596
RED hacking is pretty much as simple as its ever been and if your runner is struggling I feel the better solution is to make smaller, more dangerous NETs.

NET combat is fully deterministic: As a Ref you have no decision-making to make on behalf of programs or demons, they all do something specific according to the netrunner's presence and behavior. Movement is free and Starting Netrunners by default have 3 NET actions to work with.

The only reason I'm telling you this is because your 'solution' is virtually identical to the system as it exists which you're admitting that you and the netrunner are not very familiar with. It will be easier to run the system faster than make a new system for your player to learn and hope there's no holes in it.

The three commandments of running RED netrunning are as follows:
1. Read the Netrunning section. Now read it again. Now read Midnight with the Upload for fun. Read Netrunning again. It is 23 pages and only about 13 of them are regularly needed for players. Read it again.
2. Plan your turns; nothing changes in NET space unless you change it, as long as you don't get shot in meatspace your net actions can be decided as soon as your turn ends.
3. Don't make players run the entire NET every time. Files can be barely 3 floors in; if they're looking to turn out the lights they just need to hit the right control node. For players, don't feel obligated to run the entire NET if you don't need the entire NET.

>>97651318
Yeah, just give the Netrunner Quickhacks and ignore the Netrunning Minigame if it's causing you problems.

>>97651318
>kowloon walled city type shit.
That's exactly what I was going for, plus Dredd, and some real-life experiences living in a building that should have been (and later was) condemned.

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Discuss the benefits of being cyborg over 100% machine

>>97650596
>And further, that's 2 different battlwfields I have to keep track of and I'd be slow as hell until I get some experience with it.
>Next, it's plain just not fun. It's not the fast resolving combat, it's got me and the netrunner poring over the rules to look at and confirm if we're doing it right. Which makes it even more of a slow slog.
>Do you face these issues? What do you do to solve it?
I'm in the same boat, but either you learn how to do it, and it becomes smooth, or you excise it from the game. We had a small net architecture in the last mission, it was a little clunky but it was kind of cool that they were doing both at the same time. The net runner had to deal with the daemon, turn off the cameras and wrestle control of the a turret while the rest of the PCs were fighting the enemy edge runners. Did it slow down a little bit? Yes, but that's part of learning the system. The important thing to remember is that it all happens on the same initiative.

>>97651419
>Don't make players run the entire NET every time.
Realized this in my prep for Shadowrun 2e. We're just learning the system, I don't need to give every single node IC, I don't need to make every node a different rating. Net architectures are even simpler, just work on some 3 to 6 floor architectures. The most basic ass one would be like
Password
Ice
Data

-or-

Password
Ice
Control node
Password
Data

Is there a consensus on which of the official adventures for RED are good, bad or somewhere in between?

>>97652768
I've played two, and read them all, and they are all kind of bad, but they all have good ideas in them, from what I can see. The template they came up for adventures is absolute fucking dog vomit, though.

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>>97647851
The kind who'd wear this hat (with the SP4 armored headware insert). I was giving the character more thought too and I'm leaning towards them being a fixer, I was also thinking of adding in some rippers or scratchers for processing catches but the humanity costs for them, even the simple bladed fingernails, are really high for what you get. I did see this sun blocker implant in the chromebooks though, I'll probably keep that one

>>97652777
>and they are all kind of bad, but they all have good ideas in them
Do tell.

https://www.carscoops.com/2026/03/tpms-vehicle-tracking-security-hack/

You've heard of ghost guns but now we need ghost cars too that get disposed of after a job. But here is an interesting way to let your crew taste the consequences of their actions even if they think they covered all of their bases.

>>97652768
The ideas are preem (ReaperAI from Reaping the Reaper has become a minor celebrity because it's mere existence encourages everyone to run AI-centric jobs and Agents of Desire has a great dramatic finish as expected of Mike himself), the scenes and challenges can be adapted for your own use, and the new tech/weapons push the envelope of what we get (for example Reaping the Reaper has completely illegal netarchs) but you'll have to reverse engineer them.

But 90% of the NPC's are so 0-D they almost feel like bad /pol/ parodies. Like the Gencon sasquatch gig with pot smoking granny whose giving you the deets about hunting 'squatch and adds 'I'm gay btw' didn't ask. Or the bad guy from 'Haven't got a stitch to wear' who is trying to take over the Pakistani communist cycling delivery company because he's white and has a business degree so obviously he can do it better. I gave him a far better motivation when I ran that.

My other gripe is that all of the gigs feel very low level. It's been 5 years since release but all of the jobs are based off the crew having one or two sessions under their belt. It's not impossible to scale up difficulty but without any official high level gigs it really is uncharted waters.

So steal the files (my megalink should be in the last thread) give them a read and see what you like and get inspired. Watch some old 80's anime for more inspiration.

>>97652841
I just wrote up and entire fucking post that my phone ate, so I'm going to summarize;
Most of them are very railroady, or choose your own adventurey. In a lot of them the antagonists are uninteresting and poorly thought out. The template they've created for all their adventures is just bad, and it leads to the really stiff structure they have. Hope Reborn really makes the player characters seem like side characters doing bitch work, and they don't even solve the central mystery.

That being said, they all have interesting concepts, characters, ideas and set peices that are worth stripping out, and some of the individual ones, like Mike's kidnapping scenario in Street Tales, are close enough to good that they are worth remixing into something actually runnable.

>>97652856
>he's white and has a business degree so obviously he can do it better
This is an incredibly believable motivation.

>>97652841
>>97652856 again
Many threads ago I reimagined Night at the Opera as a non-magical Vampire; the Masquerade scenario where the main professor villain was a medtech/rockerboy running a very influencal cult. The real threat wasn't boring students, it was random gangers, Corp security and NCPD having vampyres and talking positively about the professor. I got the idea when one rockerboy player commented how many fans he must have in society from how often he used Charasmatic Impact. Now I thought 'what if a non-idiot had that much influence instead of a gonk avoiding parking tickets?'

Reaping the Reaper could be a setting-destroying scenario. In that gig a few shitty neural implants with backdoors ended up in Night City which let ReaperAI puppet people. But what if it was a huge shipment? Any solo would kill for cheap neural implants so they could get cheaper smart-link. It's just that nobody knows about the AI control part. So you get a zombie apocalypse but the zombies can use guns and really really well. And if you want to be evil you can threaten the players that if they get captured they'll be chipped with the bad neural implants too.

Agents of Desire was fine until the final act. Instead of a lame gang my crew had to rescue Aisha from the Triads which haunted them for the rest of the game because the Chinese are vengeful.

I haven't really read Hope Reborn but the final boss has a nanomachine hive and every time he takes a set amount of damage he fully heals his subdermal armor and pukes out a nanomachine swarm that can hit every player with an unblockable very heavy weapon (well technically they can test resist drugs/torture but nobody takes that). Now that is cool boss tech.

>>97652856
>>97652911
>>97652923
So, it seems like "A Night at the Opera" and "Agents of Desire" are ones that require the least amount of retooling. It's a shame that the official stuff is so lackluster, especially when they've got decades of material to draw from.

>>97652923
I plan on doing a huge remix of hope Reborn, I like the idea of it and some of the individual scenarios have cool bits, but it kills me that they introduce a mystery villain, and then don't have you do anything to catch that villain.

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Hey, was planning on making a Euro Cop character for 2020 since my Referee wants to run Eurotour as out starter adventure (btw, without spoiling, does anyone have experience with that one? Like enough to pass along pointers to my Referee) and was wondering if anyone had advice for making a character like that? I know Euro Cops tend to be a little more on the heavily armed side of things, but what kind of gear and cyberware would be recommended, as well as any other tips?

>>97653883
Also I was thinking of maybe having them be Corp Security, maybe something like Rheinmetall, Messerschmitt, or some other group. But maybe Interpol would also work. Don't know on that front yet.

>>97652989
A Night at the Opera was really fun
I looked up footage of Bela Lugosi as Dracula to give the leader of the Philharmonic Vampyres the perfect voice for his speech
"I fear he might be... a CYberPSYcho!"

>>97653883
for eurotour, iirc the lawman is going to fill a role closer to security guard than cop

>>97653944
Oh I figured that, I just meant for afterwards, since I'm planning on going Corp Security and me and DM have agreed it would make sense if my character went back to the States for employment with the US branch of whatever corp I choose.

>>97652923
>well technically they can test resist drugs/torture but nobody takes that.

Really? Resist Drugs/Torture is used to resist practically every negative status effect the game throws at you and can be boosted by 2 by 100 eb cyberware. Red gives you so many skill points at CC, you'd be stupid not to have it atleast 12-14.

If you give your character that skill along with Evasion and Brawling you're pretty much invincible.

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Apparently there used to be a doujin fanzine for Cyberpunk 2020 in Japan during the 90's. I swear I recognize the circle's artist but can't remember a name nor read the signature.

Anyway, one member posted a bit of the content on his personal site, but it looks like he never finished posting.

http://asobinin.org/pages/rpg/cyberpunk/cryotank/cryotop.html

>>97652989
Yes, I was harsh in my criticism but only because I loved the potential of the ideas. As-is both are good, especially Opera. Reaping the Reaper too, and the prequel in the Data Pack is good too. Actually for really short season 0 missions the Data Pack is good.

>>97653757
Good shit, I'm looking forward to that.

>>97654927
You're right, I just mean that most players don't realize it. Cyberware (to counter emp) gets forgotten too but Resist Torture/Drugs is more important.

So I was thinking of being a Solo, but was having some doubts because a played a combat focused class in another ttrpg before (Assassin in Dark Heresy) and I honestly had a miserable experience because I basically had nothing to do or really contribute to all that much. I was wondering if Cop is a good alternate while still being more combat focused than something like Fixers, Media, or Med-Techies (the only other roles besides Cop and Solo not in my group).

>>97656155
Most of the time if your Ref isn't actively coddling you, everybody fights. Solos are just good at it. You will have a truly obscene amount of fighting to do, and more if other players don't contribute to it as much.

>>97654936
Cool. Had no idea Cyberpunk was a thing in japan before GITS was a thing.

>>97649961
How much homebrewing would I have to do if I wanted to play a Red campaign in a setting outside of Night City?

>>97657072
Depends on what your setting is; if it's another shithole metropolis you probably won't need to do virtually anything at all; but if it's some arcology or something drastically different you'll probably have to redo the random encounter tables from scratch.

If you're not going to be rolling for stuff like that though, your workload won't be any different, you'll just need a new map and to make your tactical maps according to the new environment.

>>97657593
I'm thinking of setting a story in the Vegas, either in the 2077 era or the era of the red. How would that be different from Night City?

>>97657645
i dont know if it was ever covered in a sourcebook, but you've basically got casinos in place of megacorps, the paradise strip instead of the corpo plaza, and probably less verticality
raise the mafia's presence, throw in Ocean's Eleven style heists, and figure out what, if anything, stays in Vegas

>>97657645
Well, best I can figure in my limited experience is that Vegas is now competing with the cities of Arcadia and Los Juegos (a bit on the nose) for tourist traffic. It is alleged to still be the king of gambling and bigshots coming in with their money probably makes the city revolve around that. Expect glitz, glamour and a thin veneer of civility over corporate and mob backstabbing. More than anything else they can't have it turn into a warzone, so jobs will probably revolve more around heists and subterfuge than shootings on the street, though there's still likely no lack of those.

>>97657042
>before GITS was a thing
Anon, GitS is from '89, not '95. It started squarely in between CP13 and CP20.
Japan also started making their own cyberpunk (the genre) TTRPGs in 1990.

>>97658274
I keep forgetting it was a Manga before it was a movie.

>>97656155
If it's in Red, this isn't something you really have to worry about. Roles aren't like Careers in DH, you'd have to go out of your way to make a character that is solely good at combat and completely incompetent at everything else.

>>97660330
Goddamn it, I forgot to specify 2020

>>97660657
You'll still be fine, like the other anon said, it's not that rigid.

>>97656155
If it helps you understand: think of the role as your character's predisposed aptitude. Solos are predisposed to be good at fighting, medias are predisposed to be good at sticking their beak in. Solos can also demand entry to a crime scene, they just don't have an aptitude for it, medias can also start blasting, they just don't have an aptitude for it.

One of my players usually picks a solo when we play, he is the player that most urges caution and to take the safe bets; he plays a solo because when that fails he wants to be able to shoot his way out of the situation.

One of my players usually picks rockerboy or media, he rarely leverages his abilities because he thinks that's "cheap" (I don't understand it either). He is incredibly willing to escalate a situation into violence despite not putting many points into fighting. Currently he has self-identified as the group's driver, and has put his points in driving and explosives.

>>97651419
Do you happen to have a blonde busty catgirl PC with antennas sticking out of her head?

Alright, so we had our 3rd session of Shadowrun 2e, and have decided to drop the game. Here is my unsolicited review of a 30 year old edition of game:

I fucking love shadowrun, specifically the Shadowrun of the 2050's. And there is stuff to like about the system: I like the way health, armor, and damage work. It's a weirdly elegant system in a sea of clunk. I also really like the magic system Some of the related stuff, like learning magic is overly obtuse, but the core idea is good. I really like the idea of pools, I feel like round to round resource management like that in an under utilized mechanic in games.

But holy fuck. The 2e rulebook has to be one of the worst core rule books ever written. Rules hidden in item descriptions, item rules hidden in combat rules, rules that just don't exist (couldn't figure out how much damage someone takes if they're on fire, for instance.) It's just one of those books that's a massive pain in the ass to reference for anything.

And then there was the hacking. It was bad, but not in the way I expected. The "separate dungeon crawl that the Decker goes on" could be fine. The problem was that every single action the decker would take necessitates at the very least 2 separate rolls, one to execute the program and one to see if the program actually does the thing. I understand what they were going for diegetically, but in practice it's slow, clunky, and sets the decker up for failure by double the amount of rolls they have to make.
And, on top of that, the minute to minute figuring of a handful of +/- 1 or 2s in combat just wore us down. I made about the simplest possible heist I could with the absolute simplest matrix net I could, and it was still a slog. Really bums me out, I love shadowrun, and I'm glad we finally tried to play this version, but it just wasn't happening.

Are RED's netrunning rules compatible with 2020? Can I play 2020 with its rules but then switch 2020 netrunning for RED netrunning?

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>>97661291
When you phrase it like that it sounds like an accusation.

>>97662103
should be largely compatible
RED's netrunning is basically roll int + role ability vs DC to succeed. Net combat and IC and daemons and whatnot all basically work in a standalone system separate from the main gameplay. There should be nothing stopping you from implementing it

>>97662103
Do you plan on porting over the wireless nature of net architectures as well, or just using it to replace the big dungeon grid style hacking?

>>97662315
I'm already running my 2020 campaign under the assumption that there's no world-wide net and that the city-wide net is extremely basic Web 1.0 stuff. Everything important is done through local self-contained networks that you can't hack without connecting with a cable to a device within the network.
So something like hacking stoplights from within a moving car is not possible.
This didn't really matter so far since I didn't have any netrunner PC, only NPCs which could help out (for a price/favour). This would always require the PCs to connect their cellphone or a similar device to a PC or system at the place they were trying to get into, so real infiltration was still necessary.
Now a new player wants to make a netrunner and I'd rather not have to deal with making and running separate dungeons.
>>97662236
so just skill checks with, I assume, modifiers and such coming from the programmes you have installed? No dungeon crawl inside a datafortress? That sounds like what I want.

>>97662381
Do you have a plan on how to reconcile that with the Menu function?

>>97662381
It is still a kind of dungeon crawl, it's just a less complicated one. Net architectures can still branch, but it's like having several linear branches rather than a true separate dungeon. Also, as other anons have pointed out, architectures are fairly deterministic.

So, it is still somewhat of a separate minigame, but your netrunner has to be there in meat space, and it happens in the initiative order with the rest of the team on a one to one basis.

>>97662406
Can be done but you need a wired connection somewhere.

I had an adventure in which the PCs needed to open a door with an electronic lock. None of them had a single skill point in electronic security and all had pretty low Tech. They could have tried to steal a keycard but instead they contacted an NPC netrunner to try to open it for them, I had them get cables and tools and open up the door's security panel and connect a cellphone to it via cable and then they had to stay put for several minutes while the netrunner worked. Meanwhile they had to make some good social rolls to keep security from snooping around and seeing what they were doing.

>>97662414
A branching path seems simpler and quicker to design/run.

>>97652989
I'm planning to run Night at the Opera and, while the set up and idea is fun, it needs a *lot* of work to be something fun. As it stands it's
>Players are told to go to a party, sit through a cut scene, get in a fight
>Two nights later, players are told to go to a noodle stand, philharmonic vampire show up, tell them their boss wants to talk to them.
>Philharmonic leader tells the party where the bad guys are. They go there, get in a fight, the session ends.

The scenario acts like there are ways to figure out who the actual villain of the piece is, but the only clues are essentially overheard rumors about how the psychology professor at the school hasnt been doing his work lately. It's... Really, really bad. Cool idea, but this is going to take quite a lot of reworking to make usable.

New Devlog.
https://rtalsoriangames.com/2026/03/05/welcome-to-night-city-devlog-4-flashmaps/

>>97662693
Some thoughts I've had whilst at work:
First thing that goes is the idea that the players are being hired by the Philharmonic Vampires, pretending to be an agent of the latest victims father. It's stupid, it goes nowhere, it doesn't make any sense. Also gone is the Professor's motivation. Him wanting to kidnap people and biosculpt them into someone else is fucking stupid. Also, gone is him being cyber psycho. It's too easy a crutch to go "his plan doesn't make any sense because he's craaaaaazy!" Third, the vampires don't know who he is or where he is. "They can't go to the cops" is fucking stupid, they are a gang with a bunch of members, if they know exactly who it is and where he is, why aren't they taking care of it or hiring someone to directly take care of it.

In my version, the college student disappearences are going to be covered up by Night City College security forces, who don't want to look like incompetent boobs. Lord Ruthven isn't an ex-Philharmonic, he's still a college psych professor but that's a cover, during the war he was a freelance "enhanced interrogation specialist" who used the towers falling and the chaos thereafter to go mostly straight under an assumed name. He's obsessed with Lucy Rhinemeyer, the victim in the scenario, and wants to kidnap her and use some of his old techniques to reprogram her into a willing partner. Of course, he's a bit rusty, so he had to practice on the other kidnapped women first.
I think the connection to the Philharmonics is that he did some drug and BD design for them on the side. He's using them as a smoke screen, both because it's easy, and because he is starting to dig the vampire lifestyle, seeing Lucy as his Mina.

>>97664015
My Lucy is going to be a spoiled debutante Paris Hilton type. The players will be hired by her security detail, who wasn't keeping a very close eye on her charge, and would really like to get her back before her boss finds out. She thinks the girls just fucked off without telling anyone. She's actually screwing two of her professors (but not Ruthven, hence the near homicidal jealousy.) and possibly a member of the Philharmonics.

Finally, I'm getting rid of the clown and the monk, they're fucking stupid. Ruthven's minions are going to be his "brides," the women that he experienced on so far, given some cyberware and combat chips. Makes for an interesting combat puzzle if the characters have to fight some combatants that they really shouldn't want to kill.

That's my rough idea so far, obviously I need to nail down some of the particulars, but I'm interested in what anyone thinks or any notes.

>>97663975
I like the maps that we've seen for this so far.

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>>97650596

>>97664686
It's funny how adding a simple table effectively fixes one of Red's biggest problems.

>>97664779
>"Hey Netrunner how would you like to roll Interface five turns in a row instead of playing the game?"
>"Could you just fucking kill me instead?"

>>97664794
A thing I'm noticing with a lot of the premade net architectures is that netrunners are essentially doing this anyway, just with more steps. I don't think boiling it all down to a table either, but I feel like it does require some thought to build interesting net architectures.

>>97664794
I gladly would kill all netrunners for making me interact with a boring subsystem only they use.

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>>97664949
I guess it just goes to prove that if you make a system idiot-proof it will attract a bigger idiot. I learned the roll in two sessions and my NET turns are faster than my meat turns.

That would be bragging if it was impressive, but it isn't, RED Netrunning is ultra simple; and you're not required to like it but anyone who can't do it probably is going to struggle with the rest of the system worse.

>>97665029
*role

If you don't like it, don't play netrunner. If you don't like running it, don't let players play netrunner. If you don't like other people playing it with GMs that are willing to run it, stop crying on my shoes.

>>97665029
Pal, nobody's claiming it's complicated. I just think it's boring to perform. Those are two different criticisms.

>>97665032
And you're right, I don't allow those things.

Enemy netrunners is how it gets complicated. Also, just about every room may have something to interact with. GM and player need to be creative.

>>97664020
More logical, but also with enhanced sex pest creepiness factor that not everyone would be ok with.

>>97664686
Where is this from?
>>97662210
I just wanted to be sure before I say "Hi, Waffle".

>>97665421
This is from the Solo play book released back in September. There's some interesting tables in there that can be used in regular play pretty well.

>>97665446
that book has been an invaluable gm tool

Reminder that catgirls with neural chips that turn them into sex slaves is a canon feature of Cyberpunk.

>>97665811
So are hypno virtus that brainwash people into troons and goons.

>>97665348
>Enemy netrunners is how it gets complicated.
That's fair, I haven't graduated to that level of complexity yet
>Also, just about every room may have something to interact with. GM and player need to be creative
Yeah, but ultimately the way they interact with something is "roll a dv [x] check, or roll a combat check over and over again." There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interesting strategy in netrunning.

>>97666558
I can't speak for everyone, but a lot of netrunning strategy is in prep; more like deckbuilding (well, exactly like deckbuilding actually) instead of something terribly complicated in the moment to moment.

Decks and programs are priced the way they are under the expectation that runners will eventually have a few decks, so I'll give you an example.

Currently my netrunner has a Kirama Advanced Deck, actually her first deck. I chose that one because she was multi-role into Netrunning and was running some Architectures at rank 2 and 3, which is fucking tough. The KAD lets you jack out safely for free, so I could keep her from catching a case of terminal brain-damage if she gets in over her head. Mostly it runs enough swords to swing in on each of her actions and armor to keep from being turned into a vegetable.

As she's gone up in rank, I've also gotten a standard deck and a bodyweight suit. The bodyweight suit is holding a range upgrade so I don't have to worry about different range limits when switching decks; but the second deck is now optimized for combat, especially against other netrunners. It's got a Raven and Aerie on it along with Vrizzbolt to non-lethally beat down an enemy runner. The Kirama deck is much as I made it to begin with, but I run it with Cloak now for stealth netrunning instead of Speedy.

In an ideal world, I would probably have one deck made for stealth running, one made for blitzing unattended NETs and another one just for stomping people. There are a few ways you can do any of these goals and a number of quality of life choices are tradeoffs (like 'I don't like catching fire and needing to spend an action to put myself out, so I'm going to harden the wires' or 'programs are expensive if I keep losing them, so I'm going to get a Phoenix or Backup Drive)

>>97667205
Interesting. We've only just started playing, and I don't think that my netrunner player has really thought about things like that. You've definitely given me another pov to think about, thank you.

Chums if I wanted to run a single player game (Me as the Ref and another player) in Red. Where should I start? We both have experience with other TTRPGs haven't tried Cyberpunk

>>97665029
Every thread you defend Netrunning and every thread you miss the point. Netrunning sucks not because it's too mechanically complex, it sucks because it's a second combat system bolted on to the regular one that's detached from the rest of the game and is usually only interacted with by one player at the table while everybody else twiddles their thumbs and patiently waits to get back to the real game.

It's like if a DnD wizard couldn't cast spells and spent all their time in the metaverse playing a minigame and had nothing to help the party in the minute to minute gameplay. Seriously every other Role is designed with some utility in mind, but the Netrunner is practically playing a classless character outside their subsystem.

It splits the party, slows down the game and creates more work for the GM. Even if you THINK you're fast at Netrunning it's still a pacing killer whenever YOU decide to attempt a Netrun and force the GM to split their attention between YOU and the rest of the party. Otherwise the GM has to constantly come up with contrived scenarios where Netrunning is only useful when everybody is under fire and in initiative.

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>>97670364
Man that sounds like something someone would say if they and their Ref didn't read the Netrunning chapter and were suffering from an honest to god skill issue.

>>97670409
How many times are you gonna post that image? Get some new material.

>>97670430
The only joke here is you senpai. I'm not going to repeat myself on this matter. If you want advice, ask for it nicely and I might be able to give you some suggestions but if I were to agree with you, we'd both be wrong.

>>97669797
Give them the Main Character points in the character creation and give them a couple of NPC helpers.

>>97670439
I think you have a legitimate mental problem, seek help.

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You know, It just came to me, it's strange a book all about "military grade Weaponry", SOF 45 didn't add a Foregrips attachments for guns.

Having a cheaper way to get a +1 for your gun would make Heavier (non ACPA) armor way more viable.

The solution to the Netrunner problem is obviously to force everyone into the cyberspace.
Have the party visit the BD brothel, a Rabid infests their headsets and they'll now trapped in a virtual non-euclidian hellish pornscape. Now they can either read the Architecture rules or die.

>>97675235
>It seems we've been transported into the DIGITAL REALM!
>Digital realm?! What does that mean??
>It means we're INSIDE THE COMPUTER! We're in CYBERSPACE!
>So we have to defeat the bad guy... IN A VIDEO GAME??
>Yes, we have to complete the program just like it happened in the video game to defeat the bad guy and escape back home to our own reality, the video game of World of Warcraft.
game over - you accidentally made an elflines online campaign - your soul is eaten by a grue

Something Cyberpunk 2013 did for Netrunning that not even 2020 did was very clearly establish boundaries.
Each Frame (box in the Shadowrun style diagram) had either Nothing, SysOps or an AI guarding it.
Each of the limited programs had a rock-paper-scissors explanation for what they were for and weak against.

2020 added the Remote which no one seems to use but it removed the procedure for vague Datafortresses and added more programs but none had any relation to each other.

>>97652768
They’re literally all shit. I’ve had a better time importing missions from the video game than any of the prewritten stuff. Also saying this gets J Gray extremely mad

>>97675416
Oh my God, they made netrunning bad on purpose to trick you into playing an Elflines campaign! It all makes sense!

Fixer bro is commissioning a custom car, we're all throwing out gaudy ideas like a jacuzzi trunk and leopard print interior, but somebody mentioned having like a gallium or mercury coolant system for the engine and it seemed cool but would something like that actually work? Is it ostentatious and gaudy to cool your car with quicksilver or just stupid?

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>>97675517
Cyberpunk 2013 Netrunning and its lore is just the most interesting version of it in the setting. Putting up with tech enshittification may be suitably cyberpunk, but its not something I really wanted to see. I see it enough irl.

I want virtual dungeons and AI Chat bot demon frens back.

Trying to work that out for my own 207X games without retconning all the Blackwall lore.

>>97676885
Mercury can be an effective heat sink but is too viscous to be pumped around.

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>>97664686

>>97664015
>>97664020 here, I ran my version of Night at the Opera tonight. It went well, although my players got a little sidetracked in the middle. They never tried to break into Lucy's dorm room, or interview any of her teachers, so they never found out about that side of the investigation. And they were kind of dithering so I threw a couple of the "brides" at them, and they ended up being shit scared, sort of unnecessarily. For some reason they still think this game is Call of Cthulhu dangerous. I gave them an out, and had their media contact basically go "if you're alright with making no money on the job, we can just call the cops in." They decided to be altruistic cowards, but I still gave them some money and a big rep boost.

All in all, a good session, everyone had fun and got to use their role abilities. I just turned hacking into single rolls for this scenario, though. I'm really just not loving netrunning system.

>>97670364
NTA, but you're genuinely retarded

>>97670364
This is my stance on it as well.
However, consider what enemy netrunners can do without the party having one; they'll be using the mechanisms of the world, doors, turrets, microwaves as weapons.
Dropping the minigame sounds fine now, doesn't it?

>>97679531
>enemy netrunners
?the minigame
Do you play Netrunning against yourself when your enemy Netrunners do shit?

>>97679376
Like I said before anon, seek help. I'd be one thing if I was retarded and couldn't comprehend the genius game design of Netrunning, but practically every thread we have a new fag who complains about the system. At some point you have to admit Netrunning is a common point of failure for alot of tables and the people who enjoy Netrunning as it's currently presented is a minority?

>>97679531
If only there was some way for a Netrunner to hack devices in a quicker manner? Hmmmm.

Would not be surprised if quickhacks fix netrunning.
Upload time being one of the balancing features.

Is Red's combat balanced in such a way that reducing max HP to 12 for all characters makes it about as deadly as in 2020? I ran my first session and was blown away by how long combat went on.

>>97680003
>max HP to 12
Anon, not even 2020 characters are that flimsy.

>>97680003
>Mandatory
James Hutt rule: single 6 rolled is a crit, it's called high lethality.
>My rule
Your HP is equal to WILL+BODY, so somewhere from around 10 up to 24 maximum.
I call it realistic HP, pistols kill you, grenades obliterate almost anyone, and a player shat themselves (quite literally, good thing we're using VTT) when I introduced a foe whom used rockets.
Trust me, game paces waaay differently when you're that squishy.

>>97680304
>James Hutt rule: single 6 rolled is a crit, it's called high lethality.

It's not high lethality, it's breaking the game by making you roll injuries constantly. Plus it's ignoring all the other poor game design choices that make Red's combat tedious in the first place

>>97680230
>>97680373
Fair points, the other thing I've considered is rebalancing Red's netrunning, when I ran it within 2020 previously it had the opposite problem of being too lethal.

The thread:
>combat isn't lethal enough we need to reduce HP by 5 times
Also the thread:
>there's no point really in wearing anything other than LAJ, every poor scavenger has 200 eb lying around for one with a helmet
>dodging bullets is OP; what of course all my NPCs have 8 REF, otherwise they couldn't dodge bullets
>look you don't die to an armor piercing rocket even naked; on average you have 7 HP remaining and a 5 inch piece of shrapnel sticking through your lung that'll kill you about 50% of the time if you don't sit down and try to keep your insides inside.

>>97680003
Just remove the bonus 10 HP from HP calculation.

>>97680727
Hey! That's not true, I give my mooks Tech upgraded Kelvar.

>>97680960
I did and they were still surviving too long. One character got shot point blank with a heavy pistol and just shrugged it off. Had light armorjack. Maybe I missed some steps?

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>combat is a slog
why do i keep seeing this? do people forget youre not supposed to use guns inside buildings because of their ranges, or forgot to ramp up the combat?
i got a player that used a gun inside a building because his stat is still high enough to reach over it. everyone in the building heard the shot, so he got five more gonks blasting his ass with bombs when he was fighting three enemies previously.

>>97680727
Refs and players fear the autofire.

>>97681514
>>97680727
you forgot that LAJ is visible, so they shouldn't be wearing it like 90% of the time

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>>97681540
>you forgot that LAJ is visible, so they shouldn't be wearing it like 90% of the time.

NTA. So? Unless it's a infiltration job, where the party is acting their way in lupin style; that doesn't really matter.

>Pic related
If you're sneaking your way in via Stealth, you're not supposed to be seen at all; And light armor jack doesn't lower you're MOV, or DEX, so why not wear it.

>>97681116
You missed the part where you shoot them again and again until they're dead. Otherwise aim for the face rookie.

>>97681514
Unless you're raiding literal junkie den, the security should be wearing some sort of comms so the moment one of them knows about you they all know about you even if you don't make a noise. And cleaning building with only stealth kills/chokehold takedowns is a bit of a slog. Even though it usually is the optimal way to go about your business.

>>97682058
They were trying to silence the security. Unknown to them, it was the first wave. The netrunner hacked the cameras so it looks all fine. Then the player fired a gun because he thinks the three enemies is all that and the plan went tits up from there.

>>97681963
>it doesn't really matter
I think what anon meant by pointing it out. There is a reason concealed and non-concealable weapons and so on exists. If you're not punishing players on doing obvious things such as bringing a rocket launcher to a public place, that is how you get complaints like "combat isn't lethal". RED has retarded flaws, but come on, man.
If someone with both his arms ripped off and a spike through his heart still complains about combat isn't lethal, either the player didn't track his hp right or something on combat rules is being skipped on your table. You're supposed to also get a -4 modifer to all rolls if the hp is low enough.

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>>97681963
>So?
Unless your game sessions gear you up and put you straight to the gig places like the SWAT games, you're supposed to be punished for wearing LAJ and above in public.
Unless you're a Lawman or your character works in security or something.

>>97681963
>go to club to track down target
>security bouncers won't allow us in because we're wearing armor
>party goes in without armor
>target tracked down, everyone has no armor and is armed with their little peashooters so half of the crew sees it as fights to the death and other half think outside the box to survive
Most fun session I ever had, you retards are too comfy with your safety net

>>97682395
>either the player didn't track his hp right or something on combat rules is being skipped on your table
Say you have a 3d6 handgun that shoots twice, you average 21 damage per round. Barring other modifiers if a target has 35 hit points and 11 armor, it takes you 3-4 rounds to kill him if firing point blank. This seems absurd, so what am I missing here?

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>>97682446
Put light armor jack in a carry all bag, Equip it on site. (Hell, this is one of the reasons why Conceal and Reveal objects exists)

Not to mention, Subdermal armor, or Bodyweight Suit (maybe that one's a stretch. Maybe not, wearing Netrunning garb as a Fashion choice doesn't seem too out of the realm of possibility.)

>>97682547
The average of 3d6 is 10.5, Tech upgraded Light armor jack/medium armor jack are designed to statistically stop them most of the time.

This is why most mooks have very heavy pistols, because only heavy armor jack+ and above stop them on average. (Also they crit more often.)

>>97682395
Double sixes come up insanely rare at my table, we've been playing for a month and it's only happened 2 or 3 times.

And besides that, your answer to "combat isn't lethal enough," is "well, make sure you take away their armor, make sure they can't use their firearms, and only have fights in very specific circumstances, then the combat works perfectly!" then the combat doesn't work perfectly.

>>97682562
I gave 21 as the average of 3d6 with a ROF of 2, but I forgot you treat them separately in terms of damage reduction. With a Very Heavy Pistol your odds are even worse than my original example- with 4d6 your average damage is 14, which means it would take you 7 rounds to kill someone with 11 armor.

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I feel like the problem from "combat isn't lethal enough", is that players and the Refs aren't taking it seriously.
>spinal injury completely eats your attack action
>fuck you if you have two-handed weapons if you lose an arm
>negative modifiers
>traps automatically dealing damage
>direct hp damage
>melee
>drugs because lets be honest, who put points in that stat?
>some attacks automatically deal a crit
if someone tries to give a tip or remember a game's rule, people will go "nuh-uh, that wouldnt happen in THIS scenario"
>literally everyone in the world knows how to magically bullet dodge because i said so, so how do i get rid of this problem i did to myself?

>>97682795
I also think people get stupid ideas about treating their HP like meat points and acting suicidal because "the system is/isn't lethal".

My character's correct in universe response to having her knee blown clean off by a lucky opening shot is to tuck in the corner and make herself really small until she figures out what she's going to do now that she's in two fucking pieces; not shrug because she's only 'lightly wounded'.

You don't want to keep fighting at seriously wounded or when you take big critical injuries, that's what 'serious' means-- that's what critical means. If you're not cornered, you get the fuck out of dodge or find a way to end the fight.

A lot of the tools players have for protecting themselves boil down to trying not to get injured at all and generally rely on a kind of situational calculus: if someone is firing a rocket at me, I'm going to put up a shield because so help me god if I fumblefuck my way head-long into 8d6 damage it doesn't matter what armor I'm wearing, my day is going to become a lot fucking worse.

>>97682795
People forget about the roleplaying aspect of tabletops. I have a boss give up the fight because he was shot one time. It doesn't matter if he could survive the fight anyway because he was chromed to the gills. He wore that shit for intimidation purposes, not fighting because he hates getting violent.