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.

>>97682795
>>97682860
>>97682935
You guys do have a point, but it would be nice if the rules actually backed up this style of play, instead of it being entirely a roleplaying choice. Like, first round of combat, my character gets with a crit on a 2d6, so they take 6 damage and their arm is broken. My character still has 29 of 35 HP, in your mind should they retreat because of the Crit? This is kind of a braindead example, but this is the kind of ludonarrative dissonance the game creates when the answer to "I'd like combat to he more lethal," is "just roleplay it as being more lethal!"

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I think the idea that Red is a lethal game is something its fans come up with because they like the aesthetic. It's somehow become a competition that 'the game is very lethal, actually'. No one ever argued with me about whether 2020 is lethal, because it has no merit. But these arguments are about "time to kill" and "if the GM uses this bullshit then it's actually very lethal" and so on, instead of in OSR-spheres where you measure lethality by whether combat is-, or is not-, an acceptable means of conflict resolution. But shit if people think Red is lethal I guess we'll just come up with a new term for the previously considered lethal games. I vote for "ultramegadeadlysuperdangerous", or perhaps "less than lethal". Let the new generation redefine the language as is their right, I submit to their will. All this has been argued about before and will be argued about again.

My current 2020 campaign has been going for over 100 hours and no one's died yet. Make of that what you will.

>>97682795
This. I also think that people are greatly exaggerating CP2020's lethality. It's certainly the more lethal of the two, but it's not Hotline Miami. 2020 had a damage modifier based on body type, armor layering and the ability to create no-penalty armor with the rules from Chromebook 4. It's very easy to make a bullet sponge in that game unless your GM puts hard limits on character creation.
>>97683072
>My current 2020 campaign has been going for over 100 hours and no one's died yet. Make of that what you will.
Cyberpunk is about how quickly you can get a TPK and make everyone create new characters, so the GM is running the game wrong and will be struck down by the holy hand of Mike himself.

>>97680413
How did that go? I was considering slotting red running into my own 2020 game

I like the system of critical injuries but anon >>97680373 is right that just making them happen on each six is not the answer. It stops being fun when you start rerolling multiple times the ones that are already applied.
Unless you can automate that (I think the companion app does it), the best solution I came up is to roll as normal and whenever you get a duplicate result, you go down the table to pick the next unapplied injury (looping back to the top).

>>97683060
Yes. If your arm is broken you're in no position to be initiating into a gunfight unless you absolutely have to get involved. This is a reason to have a medtech or some first-aid skill, because you're actually best off calling time out and letting your other mercenary buds cover you while you pin and splint.

This is actually my point writ large, six damage is a gameplay representation of general trauma, but your arm is a fucking wind-chime my guy. If you're surrounded and in danger, fight tooth and nail to get out, but do not delude yourself that you'd be anything but a retard for not taking a minute to try and set yourself right. Danger is not linear, you aren't in twice as much danger just because your arm is broken, you are on the edge of a slick pit and at the bottom is you ground to meat. You have no business stepping down into there without two good arms.

>>97683060
having a broken arm is already dangerous, anon. youre going to have one hand and that will start a downward spiral of getting fucked out of your heavy weapons that require two hands and your grenades.
what can you hold with one hand? lets see
>pistols
>smg
you want to hold or were holding something on your other hand? get fucked
its not only a roleplaying aspect. combat isnt a game where you beat some retarded enemies to death and sleep your damage off, its a time where everyone gets a bad day and hates each other because people got shot and have to cough up more money to survive another day. that is cyberpunk.
want to stop putting yourself in debt? stop starting fights all willy-nilly.

>>97683060
>broken hand
>either already holding a pistol or shotgun
>switching weapon uses up a turn no matter what
>after combat, no money to get a new arm
>or buy a new gun if my weapons require two hands
>or heal up my health lost
or if the Ref feels like using that rule
>broken arm means that whatever you were holding explodes, take 8d6+ if it was a grenade or a pack of flaming cocktails

>>97683457 (Me)
the last point really exists. In Black Chrome, in the cocktail description, and one of the DLCs. It is not homebrew.

>>97683364
>>97683381

Okay, but this isn't modeled very well in the game. Our melee character is still as effective with a broken as he is fresh. He still has an entire other arm with wolvers, he can still do 4d6 damage a turn, he still has his full movement. "You're arm is broken and you should be worried" is a pure roleplaying choice, the numbers in that instance don't back it up.

And you're right about long term effects of damage, that is a good point. Thinking of combat in terms of a white room disconnected from the world isnt good. But, acting like the game is totally lethal, trust us, and ignoring all critique is stupid. And, like I said, crits have been vanishingly small at my table, and combats have tended to drag on. Part of this is because we are new to the system, but part of it is certainly that it's very easy to get into situations where you are just trading chip damage for several rounds.

>>97683549
>Part of this is because we are new to the system,
that explains a lot. Don't know how new you and your group are, but you have all kinds of damage to learn. Environmental damage, cyberware being destroyed, gas, falls, and so on.

>He still has an entire other arm with wolvers, he can still do 4d6 damage a turn, he still has his full movement.
Surprise him with EMP and/or smoke. Or another melee guy. Automatic damage if he can't see the enemy. Automatic aimed shot damage is nasty. Automatic aimed shot that also automatically deals a crit is more so. The possibilities are endless.

>part of it is certainly that it's very easy to get into situations where you are just trading chip damage for several rounds.
if its because your players are new to the system, that is fine. let them have fun while they're learning at the same time, theyre beginners. When you think they learned enough, introduce them to bigger fish and harder objectives.

>>97683620
>When you think they learned enough, introduce them to bigger fish and harder objectives.
Our last combat had characters with biotoxin injectors, it scared the shit out of everyone pretty quickly, even though it was definitely a winnable combat. They specifically chose to not fight more of them and take a cut to their pay.

>>97683159
Overall well, but I ran it as a detached system and hadn't clocked that Black ICE damage was balanced against way higher HP maximums. If you run them as written, your runner's going to be eating shit every other game.

>>97682860
>>97682935
That's the kind of pass I'm willing to give a video game, but there's no reason Red can't be balanced to actually support that fiction. I'm shocked nobody's written up a document to do that already.

>>97684084
You shouldn't, it is, and several people have tried.

>>97684084
it almost has it built in; I do rollunder Cool checks for morale when shit gets dicey

>>97683620
Anon, Autofire can't make aimed shots.

>>97684201
where is autofire mentioned in that

>>97684258
Sorry, I interpreted "Automatic" to Autofire in my head, opps.

>>97684084
Pain Editor cyberware. Trauma Team cards. Facedown stat.

>>97684084
facedown exists

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>>97684084
because it already exists in the system.

i think people homebrewed RED so much that they forgot how the base game works

>>97681540
>LAJ is visible
This was honestly a valid criticism (and core RED does say cops will stop people dressed to kill) but then the mimic kit happened. Granted you can't mimic kit a hat so it's not perfect protection.

>>97681526
I mean not really. Autofire is less deadly than a single rifle shot most of the time

>>97680727
>>97680727
>combat isn't lethal enough we need to reduce HP by 5 times
Retard. I was proposing realistic lethality, but obviously RED balancing is action movie flick, not reality.
>there's no point really in wearing anything other than LAJ, every poor scavenger has 200 eb lying around for one with a helmet
I dont think anyone said that, or anything that would imply that
More so, there are not really niche cases of HAJ being usefull, or even Flak (if you've got more cash) under some circumstances.
>dodging bullets is OP; what of course all my NPCs have 8 REF, otherwise they couldn't dodge bullets
Retarded GM. Are you (or anyone for that matter) really that cheap that you dont let your players rip out fucking reflex coprocessors and neural links out of their dead foes?
>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.
As I've said action movie. Pretty based image btw.
That's why I've proposed lower HP values (although Ive pushed that to the extreme I agree) so you're very likely to die on direct grenade (which minces people irl) and pretty much vaporised on rocket. You know what else cracks under a single rocket? Tanks, motherfucker, tanks.

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>>97685094
I'm always glad to see people come back to discussions, but I feel like somehow you missed the last fifteen hours of talk about survivability and damage. And possibly years of threads before it.

>>97681540
>you forgot that LAJ is visible, so they shouldn't be wearing it like 90% of the time
Actually it is not, corebook (quite vaguely though) describes it as clothing, and also MAJ and HAJ are described as visible.
>However
Looks like either a deliberate choice to give game a straightforward meta, or omission of basic armour categories. I see it this way: there are concealed armours - leathers and kevlar (and somehow LAJ) that are socially accepted in all places that allow clothing.
Then there are streetpunk combat gear, so LAJ, MAJ, HAJ for poor people that mean business and would like to survive a pistol a few times, and are immidiately observed closely by everyone and might be not allowed in more civilised places.
And then there are military grade armours that stop a fucking SMG burst or a Shotgun slug (I'm using irl examples of instant death here) most of the time and crack but still provide good protection against grenades and rockets.

So yeah IMHO LAJ is just misplaced, it would make perfect sense if it was quite visible, unless you either upgrade it or cash out for a 500eb version like that one black chrome example.

like other anons pointed out, there are concealable and non concealable (or under really big investment) weapons, why that would not apply to bodyprotection? As >>97682562 pointed out.
>Once you go subdermal, you never go external.
Especially true after SP13-14 subdermal can be used.

>>97682795
Add to the list:
>Grenade launchers are concealable as fuck
>Rocket launchers obliterate every sort of protection (maybe toughest ACPA can shrug off one idk)
>Negative modifiers can easily tip the battle (smoke or flashbang your PCs to see the magic)

>>97685157
Thanks Anon, that was very polite of you.
I certainly didnt skip previous threads though.

>>97685171
>Actually it is not, corebook (quite vaguely though) describes it as clothing,
Black Chrome confirms it is visible, hence Mimic Kit to turn it into clothing. Security still needs to roll a sight check for your ugly clothing because it still sticks out.

>Grenade launchers are concealable as fuck
The only concealable one is in Woodchipper Garage. By default, they are not.

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>>97685171
>Unlike Leathers and Kevlar, Armorjack is not conceable.

>>97685171
>Kevlar®- Can be made into clothes, vests, jackets, business suits, and even bikinis.
>Armorjack- A combination of Kevlar® and plastic meshes inserted into the weave of the fabric.
Why does one have the description of clothing, and the other has description of actual armor? Even has 'armor' in the name?
read the fucking book

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What is likely to happen after 2077? The timeline in general, not the video game. But I forgot if one of the endings is canon

Does anybody else think the level of "lethality" in Red is fine? I mean if you want Lethality you can just plan an encounter where every NPC has a Rocket Launcher. I think when people complain about low "lethality" what they're really complaining about is that Red is too "easy."

As a player you come out of character creation stronger than most NPCs and as a GM it's difficult to create scenarios that feel challenging to players without resorting to adversarial bullshit like giving every NPC a Rocket Launcher

Letting the player have access to the practically the best gear out of chracter creation with very little downside is a huge balance problem the game can't really address outside of a new edition that rebalances alot of the gear and character progression.

>>97687462
I think the main issue is that premade / edgerunner characters start with the best possible armor. Full custom characters can opt for leathers or style - but most likely will also choose lt. armorjack.

>>97687462
>>97687629

Assuming you have four players, out of character generation and following the advice in the GMing sections and Hardening DLCs:
- You are usually outnumbered in both random encounters and in planned encounter advice.
- You are encountering generally at least one enemy with a weapon that defeats Light Armorjack regularly (shotgun, assault rifle, etc).
- You will generally have more than one possibly dangerous encounter in a session before you will have time to rest: put differently, if you are injured in an encounter and have no medical intervention you can expect to enter the following encounter injured and with damaged armor.

What you are describing as "practically the best gear out of character creation" is an operational floor for street level characters of what they should have available to them if they're going to raise hell for eddies and glory.

People pick LAJ because they imagine breakdancing to avoid bullets is OP and they're right up until they're wrong and they either learn to start carrying shields, using cover and generally engaging their brain in fights or they spend a lot of time bleeding.

>>97687629
It's best possible armor and best possible cyberware. Only melee weapons/guns get a substantial jump in power from the 5000 eb items and even then a starting character can be on par with that with Martial Arts/Linear Frame combo.

>>97687643
You're really underselling how terribly balanced and easy to metagame Red is. LAJ is the favoured armor of players, because it's the only one that doesn't suck. Bullet Dodging grants your character a huge advantage against NPCs who can't so everybody picks it. Shields and Cover are situationally useful, but don't offer the constant, reliable protection a dodge roll provides.

It really makes me wonder what R.Tal's process of playtesting this thing was. Did they expect everybody to pick the sample characters and catch on to the obvious min max strats?

>>97687462
>>97687629
>>97687643
>>97688010
I think what it comes down to is that Red is, in a way, a very "old school" game, in the gygaxian "strict time keeping must be kept," sense. It's obvious that the balance really depends on
-healing taking time, so any particular session you can assume to be at least that 100 percent
-tracking resources closely, not sure during missions but between missions.
-following the reward advice and keeping rewards relatively slim, so players are hungry for rent, repairs, and ammo

I'm running my game more as a series of connected one shots while we learn the system/decide if we like it, and it definitely feels less well balanced because of that. I feel like unless all your one shots are really Straylight Run level jobs with a lot of danger and moving parts, the game probably just isn't going to feel right. I can't speak to how plays in "campaign mode," but it sounds like the people who are saying the balance is good, are playing the game closer to the way it was intended, and that is why their experience differs.

>>97688314
Jesus autocorrect really mangled the fuck outta that.
>healing taking time, so any particular session you can assume to be at *less than* 100 percent

>tracking resources closely, not *just* during missions but between missions.

>>97688010
Anon, what the fuck are you talking about? By definition Shields and Cover provide the consistent and reliable protection evasion DOES NOT.

There are three cases that dodging can fall under; evasion for a given skill value, evasion for a given skill value with fumble protection and evasion for a given skill value under penalties. As a skill check, dodging is subject to fumbling and penalties: if you are not a solo, on average one time out of 10 your evasion value will be unexpectedly low and can be as much as 9 points lower than expected. Even if you maxed your dodge to 10 with maxed 8 Stat, you can be looking at a 1-10 fumble dropping your result to a DV of 9. When you're taking heavy pistol shots, this is unfortunate, but when you're taking automatic rifle fire, this can cause the damage potential against you to fucking explode and you could be eating as much as 48 damage before armor that you were expecting to ignore entirely. If you're hurt or in smoke or your GM is applying appropriate circumstantial penalties this starts to become increasingly likely.

Now you can pray to the gods and slam luck in this instance... or put up a fucking shield and have a 100% chance to soak all that damage no matter how high it is.

If you are dodging rockets or optimum range automatic fire, you are an actual fucking idiot. Full stop. "oh no," I can already hear you whinge, "a 1 in 100 shot of maybe taking damage enough to delete my entire HP behind 11 SP, I'm so fucking scared, it's never going to happen retard."

But then when it does you're going to look extra fucking retarded for not paying 100eb for a shield or 500eb for a popup, now won't you dipshit?

>>97688314
This is pretty much spot on. Even for more generous games the rep for being too soft seems to come at least in part from GMs mollycoddling players and then complaining they can't seem to hurt them. It's cause you're not even trying to draw blood dipshit.

>>97688010
>because it's the only one that doesn't suck.
Kevlar and Nomad Leathers say hello.

>Bullet Dodging grants your character a huge advantage against NPCs who can't so everybody picks it.
Then you roll a low number on your bullet dodge, the enemy beats your 1, you eat 8d6, because you don't have a shield or think you can breakdance through 100% of everything thrown your way.
Then you die.

>Shields and Cover are situationally useful, but don't offer the constant, reliable protection a dodge roll provides.
what the fuck

>>97688355
>what the fuck
Move is a stat that enables many enemies to bypass cover since this game doesn't have an attack of opportunity (I think it should be applied to cover fire at least).

>>97687124
First AI probes reach Proxima Centauri in 2090s
NUSA builds a Mars colony in early 2080s
5th Corporate War in early 2080s regardless of 2077's ending. Will likely focus a lot on orbital warfare and mass drivers - since they almost killed NUSA last time, and Arasaka had one on the moon.
Kang Tao will attempt to rebuild Pacifica after the war.

NUSA vs Japan boogaloo, but Africa, NeoSov and Europe will also make their moves.

As for where the setting will go?
New war crimes, new weapons, potential development of mechas (many developers, including Pondsmith have hinted at liking them).

>>97688418
Suppress fire and Overwatch exists for that.

>>97688353
>GMs mollycoddling players and then complaining they can't seem to hurt them.
I just can't seem to roll multiple 6s against them. My playtest groups get absolutely bodied by my stuff but players keep surviving.
Though one of them got killed by leaking info and having her implants explode.

>>97688418
Suppressed Fire forces you to move. So by your turn, all you can do is attack and eat shit because you're forced out before reaching cover.

>>97688532
the dice wants what it wants. Can't fight fate.

>>97688010
>It really makes me wonder what R.Tal's process of playtesting this thing was. Did they expect everybody to pick the sample characters and catch on to the obvious min max strats?

Using Street rats, and rolling your character some roles can't get 8 in reflexes at all.

Fixer, Media, Medtech, and Rockerboy. While techies, Nomads, Lawmen, and solos can.

I think it's believed that only maybe 1-2 Members of a four player party would have the ability to dodge bullets at all. (Those rolls wouldn't prioritize shooting that much) Is the logic, I think.

>>97684119
>>97684316
>>97684405
Should've been more specific, but I was referring to the game supporting this
>My character's correct in universe response to having her knee blown clean off
i.e. having your hit points/in-game statuses reflect that. Subsequently the document I was referring to was one that rebalances Red to be more deadly.

>>97688778
Humanity table has you losing HL from a crit. I remember it being on Edgerunners book, but forgot if it was on core RED tables.

>>97688859
This reminds me of a question I had, how often do people use humanity as an insanity score ala CoC? Is it just a limit on cyberware or do you use it in other ways?

>>97688941
The rules states that it is an insanity score when empathy reaches 1.
So humanity 1-19 is a varying range of mental and social issues. Think of Johnny from 2077's intro being close to tipping point.

>>97684078
Good, they deserve to suffer

>>97689008
I have never and probably will never play 2077, thank you for answering the question though.

>>97688778
I don't know how the status of "Dismembered Leg" is somehow ambiguous. It would be a very unusual edge case to have that happen on a 5 damage hit, but the actual effects and how you should treat them are substantial:
- In spite of the 'lightly injured' status not applying any penalties, the injury itself is reducing most character's MOVE to close to 1 and raising their Death Save Penalty.
- Unlike most Critical Injuries, you cannot quick fix a dismemberment, making it a sticky disability until you can get to real medical attention
- While 5 HP doesn't sound like much, its anywhere between a seventh and a tenth of the average character's health. The fact you can normally shrug off that kind of damage is irrelevant when the 5 HP in question is such a crucial part of you: contrast getting stabbed several centimeters into the meat of the arm or into the neck: the same trauma is much more dear and realistically would be treated as such.

Using my character again as an example, being at 30/35 HP, 1 MOVE and with her leg clean off; she's quite literally a sitting duck and the right move-- perhaps even objectively right-- is to scrunch into cover until some of the heat is off if that is an option. The only time you're going to take that kind of damage and go "FUCK IT WE BALL" is if you have no choice, though ironically that is very likely to happen if someone blows your leg clean off. In a proof over action economy that was the scenario I tested with a Solo immobilized surrounded by boostergangers.

>>97688353
>>97688355
>You can roll a 1 so evasion is fine.
Anon, +14 evasion against a +10 mook means I'm not getting hit 9/10. In my LAJ, it'll take about 3 rockets to kill me. That means it'll take about 20 rocket launcher shots to kill me because I'm dodging. Oh, and because of the way cover works in RED, dodging is the only reliable way to avoid that guaranteed damage. And it's not like a fumble on my dodging roll means I take any more damage than I would have otherwise. I get it if say rolling a fumble on your dodge doubled the damage or something, but otherwise the odds kind of equalize because I can always cancel my opponent's crit success with my own (in fact, cancelling our a shot that would have otherwise hit is what makes dodging so strong). I think any GM worth their salt who wants to make the game more lethal should just cut ranged dodging all together. More bullets hitting players = more ablation = more critical injuries. It doesn't even break the fucking game, the 2077 pre written adventure has no characters that can ranged dodge and it's fine.

>>97686186
>Visible LAJ
Could you point me to this information? I dont recall it.
Unless >>97686216 is the exact quote.
>GL concealable
Anon I've meant popup GL. And by AF I meant the existence of a popup GL is in the corebook.
Also pretty sure the concealable one you're reffering to is a rocket launcher that's concealable while unloaded.

>>97686354
Ok, ok I apologise. LAJ is non concealable RAW.

>>97688314
Ok, then if Red is designed as an OSR style game, then why does it have heroic combat and bullet dodging in the first place? Seems counter intuitive to the design. Also the economy rules are half baked as fuck that the official adventures don't even follow them by giving you huge payouts that disrupt balance. Recent splats like Solo of Fortune also seem to be moving away from the "poverty" simulator aspect of Red, giving you higher paying jobs and more stuff to spend eddies on besides food/rent/ammo.


>>97688353
>Anon, what the fuck are you talking about? By definition Shields and Cover provide the consistent and reliable protection evasion DOES NOT.

You can't carry cover around with you except for shields that'll absorb maybe 1 attack before breaking. Dodging gives you the ability to avoid pretty much any attack at no resource cost whatever situation you're in. Sure you'll botch the roll occasionally or the GM can add enemies who will sneak attack you, but I'd say avoiding damage 9/10 times is pretty reliable. Evasion being a x1 skill means player Evasion will often eclipse an enemy's combat skills and even if the enemy has a higher base you can still roll good, he can roll bad and the result is Red players are extremely tanky unless they intentionally gimp themselves by dumping DEX (which they'll never do because it's the strongest stat in the game)

>>97688355
>Kevlar and Nomad Leathers say hello.

They're literally just worse LAJ. Anything above eats huge penalties, meaning there's no incentive to buy anything else. You can get Heavy Subdermal, but the eddies/humanity cost for a +2 to SP is simply not worth it unless you've got end game characters.


>>97688598
Yeah I suppose it's reasonable to assume 2/4 players won't spec towards combat, but the problem is once players realise how good bullet dodging is, everybody takes it on their second character.

>>97690449
>Ok, then if Red is designed as an OSR style game, then why does it have heroic combat and bullet dodging in the first place?
If you're not actually going to read my post, why actually respond? I explained exactly what I meant, and it doesn't have anything to do with heroic.combar or bullet dodging.

>>97690406
It'll take 3 rockets to kill you on with maxed WILL and BODY on average rolls. With a 40% chance to crit, one hot roll puts you on your ass; and the only reason that won't be permanently is because it's mathematically impossible to chew you up in a single bite even if you were buck naked.

For a character with a less optimized amount of HP, a rocket can and will drop them from full to nothing.

This white room masturbation cannot rely on the real expected value for any possible case when the consequences for an unlikely (1 in 100 is not as remote as people like to pretend) outcome is possible instantaneous death.p

Also if I have to explain shields to you again I will stop being so polite.

>>97690453
My point is Red may have been initially balanced around scarcity and PCs being poorfags living hand to mouth, but it's something the game has largely abandoned by this point. Following the RAW economy rules 1:1 is a miserable experience.


>>97690456
If there's anyone masturbating in white room, it's you buddy.

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>>97690449
Your whole post is basically what >>97682795 and >>97680727 are talking about.
You also have other anons showing hard counters to your madeup scenarios and how bullet dodge actually works, and you ignored them, doing the equivalent of plugging your ears.
You can't dodge what you can't see, so eat ten sniper bullets.

>>97690456
3 rockets is literally what it takes against 40 HP and LAJ I don't know what to tell you. Shields are useless against rockets unless by some miracle you roll under 10 damage. Shields aren't bad at all. I'm not saying they are. But because of how RED works, you don't really have to choose. You can use cover, shields, frames, and also bullet dodge to layer your defences so efficiently that it would take GM fiat snipers to actually threaten you. Out of all the defences, bullet dodging is the most egregious because it requires no set up and can literally just do its thing in the background while you don't have to play the differently at all. I'm not kidding when I say someone could be wearing the heaviest armour possible and they'd STILL be much squishier than a bullet dodger dodging an attack that's like 3 or under their base. That's why removing bullet dodging is the first thing you should do if you want to make the game more lethal.

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7/10 rate means I'm going to 100% dodge all attacks thrown my way. Yes, I mean all attacks.
Cover and Shields is 0%, who cares if they can soak up 100 damage from my 30 hp character
Dodging rockets? Who cares if I block the line of sight from my friends so they can't dodge the explosion
lets go gambling!

>thread being reasonable talking about combat options
>including autofire being swingy
>thread goes to shit as egotistical bullet dodge users deflect and dodge all counters and other options, also ignoring how it works
hmmmm

>>97691558 (Me)
mean threads, plural.

Players need to realize that if they build little bitch characters with max evasion who play like total cover hugging weenies I will start playing like a little bitch right back. You should have told me you want to play the game on tell me a story difficulty instead of building characters that imply you're afraid of your precious toon dying in CYBERPUNK of all games. Fuck you invisible snipers shoot you off the map at a +14 after the aimed shot penalty and yes they deal 8d6 damage with modified tech upgraded sniper rifles and no you can't get them. Total Player Death.

>>97691480
While I forgot about the explosive damage carve-out on shields; I've become rather uncharitable to this line of debate. Just how lethal does lethal need to be? PCs can be shot twice and wake up on their turn dead with no narrative safety nets.

People will crow constantly about dodging when only at absolute maximum investment does it push DV averages into the static DV falloffs (to force DV25 or higher average you need 8 in the stat, 10 in the skill and synthcoke; which if you maxed it on character gen will take 17 sessions of play to reach). This is before any circumstantial penalty or debuff. Put differently, you need to have the literal maximum skill values to 'reliably' dodge Base 14 shooting (which still has a 1 in 10 shot of them rolling hot and a 1 in 10 shot of you rolling cold). Comparatively; Flak soaks the average 4d6 roughly 66% of the time for 500 eb and will always reduce the first shot by 15 damage.

OH NO THOUGH, I CAN'T HAVE ARMOR PENALTIES, WHAT ABOUT MY DODGE BASE? Fuck off. At maximum penalty if you've got a co-processor you're still pushing out beyond a DV 15+ average, effectively deleting the optimal range band from all weapons except for sniper rifles, grenade launchers and rockets. And that's with a starting character. The thing that fucks heavy armor is the MOVE penalty being so wild so you can't dictate range bands, another kind of protection entirely ignored.

Key takeaways should be this:
- Survivability scales substantially with investment of IP and eddies as well it fucking should. If you don't want your guy to be able to shrug off a tank shell going off near them, don't spend thousands of eddies and weeks of progression on the 'survive HEAT rounds' character upgrades.
- Dodging is overestimated based on risk discounting and meat-point assumptions of a 'non-lethal hit'.

>>97691931
Continuing:
- Chances of a critical hit/glitch and penalties affect evasion substantially while Armor must be defeated with hardware or melee. Cover must be handled with explosives or flanking.
- My played experience has been that people's over-estimation of dodging affects their ability to evaluate armor; which over the course of a firefight can provide dozens of additional EHP that is guaranteed. Even against an extremely well equipped adversary with specific armor defeating weapons, Flak provides 15 EHP.
- Layering defenses is necessary to survive challenge appropriate encounters and if players are not being pressured it is a failure of the Referee, not the system.

>>97691832
>You should have told me you wanted to play on Tell Me A Story
>Rocks fall and everyone dies
Your fucking GM-fu is so weak, you are like a little baby. Watch this:
>Players play incredibly safely and risk averse
>Present a single enemy without armour who is not actively looking for threats and liable to surrender if confronted

>>97691139
>My point is they released higher level options that players won't have access to, if you're playing the game the way it was intended to be played, for literal months worth of sessions, so this invalidates any other arguments because...????

>>97691931
I'll address your points one by one in order.
> People will crow constantly about dodging when only at absolute maximum investment does it push DV averages into the static DV falloffs.
Base 14 dodging gives an average DV of 20 (5.5 on the d10 + 14, rounded up because defenders win ties). A +14 shooter needs to hit a 7 or above in order to hit a regular bullet dodger, which is in lieutenant territory according to the books. As for your second point about flak armor, yes, it does provide a little higher chance of blocking a shot entirely if it's from a VHP. However, it also reduces your to hit skills and your MOVE.
>- Chances of a critical hit/glitch and penalties affect evasion substantially while Armor must be defeated with hardware or melee. Cover must be handled with explosives or flanking
Critical hits affect no dodging people way harder than they do dodgers. Let's assume that over 5 rounds, a person in heavy armor and a person dodging take the same amount of damage, but the person in armor gets hit 5 times for a bit of damage while the dodger gets hit once for a lot of damage. Because armor doesn't block crits, the person in armor is 5 times as likely to take a crit.
>My played experience has been that people's over-estimation of dodging affects their ability to evaluate armor; which over the course of a firefight can provide dozens of additional EHP that is guaranteed.
I can't really argue against your experience, that's your own. But both in my games and the games my players have talked about, the ability to bullet dodge consistently removing threat is a through line that appears.
>Layering defenses is necessary to survive challenge appropriate encounters and if players are not being pressured it is a failure of the Referee, not the system.
Maybe if this was a skirmish game. I prefer no dodging because it allows base 10 mooks to be threatening even to a badass solo who picked a stupid fight. I don't need to go out of my way to "plan" encounters.

>>97691414
I'm just pointing out that bullet dodging is really strong and actively undermines alot options the GM has to challenge players. Alot of GMing advice is just ignore these mechanics exist and partake in adversarial GMing. You can make any game difficult and deadly if you do that, but it usually isn't fun.


>>97691983
Except alot of the strongest gear is bought at character creation and the game gives you very little in the way of gear progression, mostly sidegrades and minor +1/+2 bonuses. Even if you abide by Red's corebook economy rules, it doesn't make the game any less easy to meta game or encounters more challenging. Giving your players less money just makes the game tedious and unrewarding, something I think R.Tal seem to agree as all their adventures have much higher Eddie rewards to the corebook and Soldier of Fortune codified more standard big eddie rewards.

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>>97692277
>Alot of GMing advice is just ignore these mechanics exist and partake in adversarial GMing
take another look at this thread.
>you cant dodge what you cant see
>no i can see every single attack, including the guy that scored at a 30 on his stealth roll while i rolled a 7 on my perception check
>okay heres a smoke grenade
>no, i have cyberwares that allow me to see through smoke in this scenario
>heres a sniper
>no, in this scenario, i can see snipers that are like half of the city away
>are you paying attention to line of sight?
>line of sight does not exist in my scenario, therefore, i win by rejecting your rules and making up my own

>>97692277
>I'm just going to completely ignore the post I'm replying to, restate my incorrect point again, and act like I'm making a point! I'm a very smart boy, my mom is very proud!

>>97692277
what are you talking about? if you want to minimax, you got whats coming to you. You're not becoming a Afterlife drink by being a faggot.

>>97692536
It's not even about minmaxing, the point being made is "these systems are all balanced against each other in a specific way, and taking any one in a vacuum is a mistake" and his argument boils down to "but I don't want to use those systems, and also high level content exists now, so obviously it's bad!"

>>97692481
forgot
>take -2 to all rolls from being stressed
>no, i dont want that

>>97690449
>You can get Heavy Subdermal, but the eddies/humanity cost for a +2 to SP is simply not worth it
It was worth it for me because it meant that my PC could go shirtless to style on the goons.

>>97650596
Give the Netrunner payoff. I had a netrunner be able to access a crane's control on a node and knock a building a sniper was hiding in over.

>>97692481
This is why for stealth or perception rolls involving multiple enemies I would add a stacking +1 to a single roll.

In a urban jungle I would make 350 meter sniper shot a Tactics/Deduction to notice the ambush spot. The fun part is now there doesn't always have to be a sniper there and may give the crews ideas of posting up themselves or complicate a gig as they clear it

Are there any homemade rules on cover? CP2020, with its modular armor and different pieces for head/torso/arms/legs, had two or three homemade rules on cover (for the partial cover only a penalty to the skill check), but RED doesn't seem to have any, mainly because it is all reduced to breaking down the movement action. I'd like something simple, something like XCOM (full cover that follows the RED rules and a sort of partial cover).

>>97692481
>>97692513
>>97692536
Because you retards are ignoring the core argument that Red fails to challenge players in regular combats because it allows players to become too strong at character creation and gives players a huge defensive advantage over NPCs in the form of bullet dodging.

Focusing on ratcheting up scarcity tedium or adding a ton of negative modfiers to players rolls every encounter doesn't fix this core issue. At best it's a band aid, at worst you people are suggesting ways to suck the fun out of a campaign.


You people are talking about combating bad combat balance with such genius ideas as. "oh just give them random injuries when they weren't crit" or "just roleplay that the combat is more deadly." This is not practical advice. The only sensible thing you people are suggesting is using things like traps and smoke grenades, but everybody who's played Red know these are usually mild inconveniences to a well built player character.

Like holy fuck of course you can have a sniper a kilometer away who fires a headshot nobody can avoid, but what is the counterplay to that dumbass? Sounds like a real fun session that totally won't piss off the player.

Like seriously, do you niggers actually play the game or do you just theorycraft scenarios to impress Reddit at how badass and deadly your game is, because that's where you circlejerking faggots belong.

>>97693319
Repeating the same fucking thing over and over again is not argumentation, it is fucking idiocy.

This is no longer an argument, this is a fucking sentencing, here's the verdict.

If you want the game to be hard and lethal you are running your combats wrong and are a soft sensitivie bitch boy. Your sentence is to go read random passages out of Listen Up until you hate it enough that you grow the balls to make the game you play the game you want to play.

Now fuck off.

>>97693319
why do you want bullet dodging? why do you go for bullet dodging other than "i - as in the player- want to survive"?

>Focusing on ratcheting up scarcity tedium or adding a ton of negative modfiers to players rolls every encounter doesn't fix this core issue.
That is by RAW.

>"oh just give them random injuries when they weren't crit"
Also RAW.

>"just roleplay that the combat is more deadly."
oh no, people want to roleplay in a roleplaying game.

>everybody who's played Red know these are usually mild inconveniences to a well built player character.
Maybe stop pretending your Ref does not exist.

>but what is the counterplay to that dumbass?
Literally everything in the game has pros and downsides. Just fucking get behind a wall.

>that's where you circlejerking faggots belong.
Because you retards go "i have every available cyberwares and item so nothing touches me". If you have a million eddies to cover every single thing, then your character shouldn't be in Night City in the first place or been long since cyberpsycho.

>/cpg/ - Arguing About Bullet Dodging and Netrunning Over and Over Again

Should I start 2020 characters at 60 or 70 points?

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>>97693319
your posts do not read as someone who wants to play a character in a tabletop, they read as someone who wants to be an autistic minimaxer. RED has a lot of flaws, yet I'm fine with bullet dodgers as long as they won't be autistic over it, but you are like the annoying people bullet dodging retards that show up in this general again and again who wants to control the GM, the rules, and the whole system.
If you go "I should be winning my roll, my roll matches!" while I, as the GM know tied rolls fail because I read the rules, you're getting booted from my table.

>>97693507
i dont blame the netrunning questions, it is weirdly abstract to wrap heads on
but the book is so disjointed that you can miss it being heavily simplified such as >>97664686

>>97688512
>5th Corporate War in early 2080s regardless of 2077's ending. Will likely focus a lot on orbital warfare and mass drivers - since they almost killed NUSA last time, and Arasaka had one on the moon.
Didn't Arasaka nearly die off in the 2070s? I think it would make sense that the War is everyone chomping at the bit to to either get or completely wipe off Arasaka's remains from the face of earth.
Would be funny if it was started by a weak 'Saka despite it will topple down if a baby so much coughs on it though

>>97693532
That isn't even in the corebook.

>>97693696
The stealth/netrunner DLC one?

>>97693855
oh nvm, im retarded by skipping over the post on it in this very thread

>>97693510
iirc 2020 is 40 career points + x pickup points (int+ref) which max at 20 so yeah, 60 is probably the top of what you want to hand out unless you are having your players start out as super badasses

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Is Smiling Friends cyberpunk?

>>97693404
>Repeating the same fucking thing over and over again is not argumentation, it is fucking idiocy.

Holy shit, pot why are you calling me black? Your whole argument is that bullet dodging isn't OP because you can occasionally get hit and then acting smug when you haven't presented a proper counter argument. You still haven't responded to the other anon because you can't refute his math.

>>97693416
>dude just make the game adversarial and just pick and choose what rules to follow and ignore the fact the players hate you for making the game unfun bullshit with snipers shooting you from outside their line of site with no way to return fire.

You're really should never GM a game holy shit I can only imagine what a rail roading faggot you are.

>>97693516
I have read the rules and don't hate bullet dodging as a whole, but it's hard to argue making it so accessible doesn't undermine Red's balance given the way ranged DVs work. Again I reiterate, the problem is Red makes the min maxing strats too rewarding and easy to achieve meaning it's stupidly easy to meta game, which makes it hard to plan challenging encounters on the GM's side.

>>97693507
Not my fault the resident R.Tal employees get triggered every time you point out flaws in the game design. I swear to god if it's not Bullet Dodging or Netrunning, it's Autofire or Armor penalties.

>>97695451
>Red makes the min maxing strats too rewarding and easy to achieve meaning it's stupidly easy to meta game
Then ill ask the previous anon's question: then why do you go for bullet dodging? Sure, the choice is there, but I'm not saying dont pick it. People don't 'accidentally' choose a bullet dodge build. Going for Ref 8 because of solely the mechanic of bullet dodging itself instead it making sense like 'my character breakdances for style' is going to raise eyebrows.

I also want to make sure im not wasting space over a nogames baiter, since the previous anon also pointed out snipers and tabletops. You know teamwork exists, right? Not everything has to be about you.

>>97695451
>wants hard content
>GM plays the system by following the book with no homebrew, base game only
>"adversarial, unfun bullshit"
wat?

I'm a few sessions into my first campaign and I'm really enjoying RED as my first cyberpunk so far. The party's a little combat light with a Netrunner/Tech (me), a Media, and a Medtech. Our med is the one most kitted for combat but I've got a smartlinked pistol and decent shooting and our Media has really good luck with rolls.

So far we've had to be clever with situations, but minus a few limbs no casualties yet. Rent is a killer though, but we're slowly inching our way to being able to afford a van to keep our guns in.

>>97695893 (Me)
I'm just an anon looking into the convo, but isnt that the point? Mike pretty much tells GMs to "waste 'em" if anyone feels uppity or retarded.
If you're purposely doing something that is way out of your level, of course something is going to bite back.

>>97695869
>Then ill ask the previous anon's question: then why do you go for bullet dodging? Sure, the choice is there, but I'm not saying dont pick it. People don't 'accidentally' choose a bullet dodge build. Going for Ref 8 because of solely the mechanic of bullet dodging itself instead it making sense like 'my character breakdances for style' is going to raise eyebrows.

Because it's the players picking Bullet Dodging not me? Getting Bullet Dodging isn't even min maxing, I'd say it's expected players pick it up given the Reflex Co Processor and Synthcoke exists.

You just keep ignoring my points and creating a narrative that I'm some no gaemz min maxer when I've both GM and played games and have lots of first hand experience of how bullet dodging undermines the danger ranged weapons pose. Just ignoring the mechanic or suggesting some rocks fall everyone dies bullshit does not address the core problem that Red's combat is shallow and easy to exploit with the tiniest bit of game knowledge.

>>97695893
>>97695914
Because Mike's advice works for 2020, a game with high lethality where players are expected to die, but is just inviting tedium and frustration in a more heroic game like Red?

Lets say you follow Mikes advice, what do you do? Add a fuckton of NPCs to an encounter? Add a guy with bullshit flubbed stats who's mathematically impossible to beat? Take away all player agency and go for the narrative kill?

When you GM a game you are trying to create a fun experience for the players, be be a dickhead who gets off to how hard you can kill them.

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>>97695932
>you keep ignoring my points
You dragged me into this when I was adding my 2 cents, schizo. Now you added all this new info that should had been there since the start so people wouldn't waste a hundred posts calling you a faggot over a topic this general got and answered many times.

>>97693574
>Didn't Arasaka nearly die off in the 2070s?
It takes heavy losses in many -77 endings, but it is too big to fail, at least before the war.

>>97695965
I swear you people think in far off extremes like "mega grinder", and never "dangerous".

Bullet dodging is always a gamble because you have to declare that before the attack roll happens.

If you find people matrix dodging in your sci-fi game too OP you should get some grapplers on the field, or get some enemies with woo technique, so it's a long range martial arts attacks, and would rely on their dex for dodging.

>>97695970
Well stop responding to me then. I'm responding to like 2-3 different anonymous schizos arguing related but different points and shit gets incoherent I apologize.

>>97695985
Well often it's hard to reach a comfortable medium in Red. It's easy to rocks fall everyone, but if you try to have normal combat encounter it's often easy to cheese.

Does anyone have that autistic conversion that bolted RTG's Witcher into Cyberpunk Red? It had that thing about how while it was technically possible to portal grenades the GM should exercise best judgement by cockpunching players?

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Any reason why you should pick Shadowrun 4e over 5e, or vice versa? I've read through both books, but never actually played either, and I want to run one for my group. I like 4e's cover art more, if that matters.

>>97696022
>>97696022
Just go with 4a. It takes out the worst of the weird rules, and limits are even more of a bolt on bit of crap than the rules fixes in 4a. It also takes things even further down the magic run path and is deep into CGL's embezzlement era so editing and actual care is minimal.

>>97696048
4A seems good. Usually the critique against 4e overall is that it "did away with" deckers, but that isn't really true. But could explain more about the last part? Is 4A deep into CGL's sinister zone or do you mean regular old 4e?

>>97696012
My players either tear apart my sitreps like napkins or cry about the one crit my enemies do and give them a critical injury because it's gonna cost them a lot of money.

A medium is hard to do. I'm thinking I do kevlar+very heavy pistol for 90% of the enemies and specialized the rest (enemy netrunner, hardened lieutenant, so on)

>>97696094
I think the last sentence of the anon you replied to was about 5e.

>>97696094
Take everything I say with the understanding that I have not had a game of shadowrun or anything to do with the modern books in literally years. It and Earthdawn remain my favourite games of all time, Earthdawn was my first way back in the 90s, but I'm just disenchanted with it all now. I am not familiar with the current rules and my memory of the rules of this era may be imperfect.

When they say 'do away' with deckers, I'd guess they mean the way you can disable wireless stuff and technomancers being introducted. Deckers in 3e couldn't hack on the fly, it's like cyberpunk red. In 4e you had the wireless matrix, otaku (3e) developed into technomancers in 4e. You could reach out and hack implants or guns if they were wirelessly enabled. Leaving them on sometimes had bonuses, and there was goo you could smear to forcibly wirelessly enable stuff if you really wanted but it wasn't street level. Naturally, everyone turned their stuff off. Further, if you were wealthy, there were things like dongles you could plug into a commlink and have a really cheap pocket hacker that wasn't as good but could do most of the job. Technomancers couldn't compete with a decker in a straight up fight, but they were sneaky and could use sprites - quasi-AI they summoned from the depths of the matrix - to do a lot of strange stuff deckers couldn't. Technomancers came with a lot of downsides, but they were actually pretty good if you knew what you were doing.

1/2

>>97696302
>>97696094

2/2

CGL, about book 3 of Dawn of the artefacts, had a massive embezzlement scandal. No charges laid, the person who did it (to tile his bathroom) was the best mate of the owner and was 'forgiven'. The freelancers and artists had a shitfit, pulled permissions to use their stuff and suddenly CGL had to redo all their books on zero notice. One person got parachuted into the role of financial controller and immediately quit. You can see the dip in quality, the lack of editing, the poor art, etc. The first 'real' book they did in the aftermath was WAR!, which not least amongst its sins, introduces battlerifles - a new class of weapon that's just assault rifles+1 and acts as a bogota sourcebook rather than a spiritual successor to the much loved Fields of Fire mercenary book from 2e it was supposed to be. After this it just gets worse. The quality has never recovered. I believe Battletech had a similar dip but I don't know much about it, sorry.

It also lead to their use of the cognitive fragmentation plotline, something that had literally been done in prior editions and *much better*. 5e and 6e are.. very silly, in terms of lore (Did you know Ares is approximately 20% Ant insect spirits by employees?), general quality and rules. It does however have that one adventure series with JOHNNY MOTHERFUCKING SPINRAD in.. Bloody Business, I think? which is absolutely fantastic and I love it.

>>97696307
>>97696302
>>97696094
Oh, and I've not touched on magic run. By RAW it was technically possible to start conjuring spirits as a mundane using the conjuring (Not summoning, conjuring) rules if you paid someone enough to make telesma to have your own spirit pokemon. They even clarified it in an errata somewhere that this was as intended, God help us all. Or the continuing power creep of spirits, or the utility, or books that are never fully explained and don't make sense like the sixth world tarot book that manifests airline tickets and comets, if I recall correctly.

4e/a wasn't and isn't perfect, but it definitely had to happen. 3e was held together by prayer and a dedicated GM. If you spot something in 4a that doesn't make sense, don't be afraid to change it. It probably won't matter much.

>>97695451
>Not my fault the resident R.Tal employees get triggered every time you point out flaws in the game design. I swear to god if it's not Bullet Dodging or Netrunning, it's Autofire or Armor penalties
My point is that you people have this retarded argument in EVERY thread. No one's learning anything new. No one's changing anyone's minds. It's just the online equivalent of two mentally disabled kids yelling at each other because one likes G.I. Joe and the other likes Power Rangers. And this /v/-tier vendetta against R. Tal is just the diarrhea topping on the shit sundae.

>>97696318
Great breakdown. I'll go ahead with 4A then. Thanks!

>>97693319
I seriously doubt you're simply baiting, and I'll give you an answer from top to bottom.
>chargen allows meta characters.
True, sigma + GMBL is a deadly combo, and while it's not *the* best combat prowess you can achieve, I'm 99% sure it's best melee if you include MA.
But honestly I dont think the existence of some meta is a bad thing, as there's always some meta. Only problem is you can become like top 10 damage dealer right from the get go.
>Bullet dodging
I admit it's retarded. Here's a simple fix: limit dodges (any dodges) to 1 per turn. Always baffled me that you can fist a mofo twice per round max, but can matrix the gathering shotgun shells, explosions and infinite number of projectiles. Anyway, there's a point to be made here - "if you need to homebrew, the game is bricked from the start". Like, yeah, but my proposed fix is really fucking simple.
>smoke grenades
-4 is pretty tough, almost always disables aimed attacks and if you want to ignore it you need a 1200eb investment minimum (paired IR eyes).
>sniper
This sounds more like hostile environment or a trap, ie. When you end round not in some sort of cover protecting you from, say, north you are a target to an aimed shot or whatever. Pretty good idea honestly.

>>97695451
Because it seems, you've made another one.
>Armour penalties
That's probably Infernox from reddit/discord furry that makes autistic calculations about SP n shit I dont acknowledge you to talk with them, because they're really mean, but their mathwork is top notch, it neatly explains and shows RED design ideas with pure data and logic.

>>97696000
Have a (You). I dont think bullet dodging is a gamble, since it mostly serves as a way to flat the DV rangebands. This of course allows for situations when a player that did not pay attention is shot at some ridiculous DV like 27 or so, decides to dodge, rolls 17 total and gets shot on the shot that was otherwise night impossible to pull off.
>Woo technique
Huh?

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Has anyone done a homebrew that makes the martial art system in red more generic (like in 2020). Interface volume 4 has made me hate martial arts with a passion.

Can I have a quick run down of how quickhacks work in Red? I'm sure I'm reading this wrong because they look like a great way to mow down trash with low con and useless against anything else.

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>>97699142
Sure Anon. It follows the standard netrunning rules, except that you can target a person. The arch you're running is filled with black ICE borrowed from the cyber deck the person may or may not have installed. Usually this means all the black ICE will be on the first floor (up to the usual maximum of 3 per floor). Then, if the person has any passwalls via Self-ICE installed, you have to get past those. The maximum someone can have installed is 3, and each one takes up a slot on the neuroport. If 1 is installed, the password DV for all passwalls is 6, 2 is DV 8, and 3 is DV10. Once you're at the bottom of the net arch/neuroport, you can take a net action to attempt a quick hack. You can only attempt a quickhack once per turn per target. If you succeed in your attempt to quick hack, the quick hack goes off and does its listed effect.

>I'm sure I'm reading this wrong because they look like a great way to mow down trash with low con and useless against anything else.
Yes and no. One of the biggest problems with quick hacking is that your target can take an action to force you out. While technically action economy negative, taking the swing from all their installed BICE is nasty. However, the puppet and system shutdown quickhacks are fight enders in their own right. Happy netrunning.

>>97699190
As someone who's just starting out, where can I find the quickhack rules? I've seen nothing for it in the core book

>>97699277
Quickhacks are 2077 exclusive. You have to buy the cyberpunk edgerunner's mission kit for now until the full 2077 rules drop.

>>97699465
When has that ever stopped anybody?

>>97699619
He's an intern being told to lurk, probably working for some sort of marketing group who does the same thing for 40 other companies.

https://transfer.it/t/OQToms4jyRpT

>>97699465
Ah we're pretty firmly rooted in the 2040s. I'll leave it out then

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Welcome to Night City #5 – Let's Talk Gangs.
https://rtalsoriangames.com/2026/03/12/welcome-to-night-city-5-lets-talk-gangs/

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>>97699936
>Elflines arcade cabinet
>When it's an MMO equivalent

>>97696608
>>Woo technique
>Huh?
Read interface red 4

>>97700189
I'm assuming zoomer? Believe it or not, people used to go to specific businesses to play mmos, you payed by the hour. In the dark future, where a lot of people are living with the bare minimum of possessions in a squat or a converted shipping container, a public terminal that allows you to play an MMO makes perfect sense.

>>97700424
I was about to say Elflines is a franchise, but no it actually says "Elflines Online"
>>97700189
Bruh, its like a VRMMO iirc. You are not playing that on an arcade cabinet.

>>97700449
Big business wants you to think you need an expensive braindance viewer to play Elflines Online. This is complete bullshit. Just like Ultimate Online you play that shit with a joystick. Segatari is playing us for absolute fools.

>>97700449
Dunno, I used to see people watching porn in netcafes.
>>97700465
>ultimate online
I unironically think a vrmmo of ultima online would be goddamned fantastic. And possibly terrifying.

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>>97699936
>Specialized NorCal Marshals, known as Rangers, work under the State Executioner to hunt down and eliminate fugitives
Having one executioner for all that paperwork on a state with very high morality rate seems really stupid unless im missing something like the singular name is also a plural form

>>97700596
State executioner is 2020 lore. it’s more like a state appointed bounty hunter that acts like street judge.

Would it be retarded to pull in the combat rules / HP block from 2020 into Red?
>>inb4 why not just run 2020?
I like a lot of the streamlining they did for Red, though I will if I can't hack something together

>>97702059
Stripping rules from 2020 you don't like is easier than modifying rules in Red. Use 2020 as the base and remove what you don't like and change what you want to be like in Red. You also benefit from having more written material to pull from without adapting it.

>>97702059
Kind of depends on what degree you are trying to port 2020 into RED and what exactly you are trying to achieve by changing the system.
Personally while I see the appeal of mashing them (RED imo has a much better skill list than 2020), I don't think its much worth doing, mainly because 2020's combat system is kind of sloppy already. It's probably better to just tweak either system to your sensibilities than

One thought I had for a cool Insect Spirit is the Centipede Spirit.
Basically it's not exactly like other Insect Spirits because there truly is only one of it.
The way it operates is it converts someone and then sets itself up as a Mentor Spirit at the top of a Shaman Pyramid Scheme.
Then if it's current body dies it takes over one of the Shamans it was Mentoring.

For some reason I'm having a big trouble with nasal filters in RED. Like a fucking ref 8 every one of my players want to get it. Once they get it, they don't give a shit about funny nades and nasty smells. How can I counter it? I already have high-tech corp grenade with nano-particles to make filters used and in need of maintenancing in seconds. I need some ideas for hobo-level enemies.

>>97652559
You get to use drugs.

>>97706285
Idk make them deal with skunk furries or something along those lines.

>>97706285
Most poisons do not need to be inhaled to work. The three most common vectors of poisoning are inhalation, ingestion, and absorption; you've ruled out inhalation but that is by far the least common of the three. Most poisons in aerosol form will simply absorb through the skin, or contaminate equipment which when interacted with lets it absorb through the skin or cross contaminate to orifices like eyes, mouth, and others.

Check which method of administration the grenades use in the rules and act accordingly. As far as I know Red does not account for the method of administration, and I would amend that if I were you. Generally if a player has an immunity you want NPCs to be unaware and waste their attacks enough that the player is happy, but more competent enemies should either have the means to bypass the immunity or the knowledge to circumvent it. Universal advice.

>>97706715
Oh yeah, they also maxed out resist torture drugs because it's a god skill. Street drugs automatically give their first effect regardless, but biotoxin and other bullshit effects always require to pass resist torture drugs, even when taken as part of a food unknowingly, which players usually pass, base DVs are low despite hornet's distilling compound.

>>97706874
I see. Have you tried ordinary high explosives?

>>97706892
Not really, I try not to use large amount of explosives on street level and restrict them to players too. I made AP nades 8d6 and rockets 10d6 with decrease in their availability because those things must hurt like hell. The only exception is molotovs, but those are 5d6, it's not really much.
And when it comes to corpos or gangs that do have access to large amout of explosives, players simply fuck off, because they know they will get their asses kicked

>>97704365
Basically I like 2020s combat, but prefer everything else from Red. My line of thought was that weapon damage numbers seem similar across the two versions so just porting the rules/hp block from 2020 while leaving everything else the same would be easy enough.
>>97702461
Good idea. Might be simpler to use 2020 as a base and port streamlined weapons, netrunning, and attributes/skills from Red.

>>97705949
If I ever actually play sr again I'm stealing this.

>>97707189
Feel free.

Should getting hit by any variation of a saw weapon- chainsaw, circular saw, etc- give a bonus to SP loss? Would 5 SP dmg plus normal dmg per hit seem fair?

>>97707390
The most simple solution would be to copy the effect of AP bullets: ablating by 2 SP instead of 1 when they breach armour.

>>97706924
>Basically I like 2020s combat, but prefer everything else from Red. My line of thought was that weapon damage numbers seem similar across the two versions so just porting the rules/hp block from 2020 while leaving everything else the same would be easy enough.
I would say the main thing to consider is locational damage. If you are adding that in then cyberlimbs utility jumps up from almost useless to easily one of the most useful upgrades in the game, so rebalancing costs is likely necesary.
Most statistics/bonuses in RED are nerfed from their 2020 counterparts which if anything is probably a good thing when importing 2020 stuff but something to also consider is that SP numbers in RED are significantly lower than their 2020 equivalent. This is fine balanced to RED's system but if you are importing 2020's broken multi-action and autofire rules and its stun saves and hit tables, you will find standard 11SP armorjack to be a death sentence.

>>97707479
>importing 2020's broken multi-action and autofire rules and its stun saves and hit tables
I'm definitely keeping Red's autofire and action rules, but using 2020s stun saves, hit tables, and locational damage so I copy on the armor values. I'll see if I can wrangle my players to help me test out a combat or two.

>>97696608
>That's probably Infernox from reddit/discord

For awhile I thought that guy was James Hutt's sockpuppet account or another R.Tal writer given how personally offended he gets when you critique Red. But yeah, guy's a faggot. He obsesses over data but seems to assume everybody plays the game in this very rigid manner, that nobody uses tactics or plans to cover for their character's weaknesses.

He'll argue that because there are counter plays to bullet dodging, martial arts, linear frames they aren't OP. But he also assumes that bullet dodgers don't use cover and shields or that martial artists will just run at a sniper and not just pull out a rifle themselves or that the only way to protect yourself from EMP is a fuckton of expensive Cyberware instead of just putting points into Cybertech with the fuckton of skill points you get from CC.

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>>97709277
These are all arguments I've had (with varying degrees of accuracy) with people in the thread and I've never heard of this Infernox fag.

>>97709291
Like I dunno if it is that guy, but I suspect alot of the most annoying /tg/ posters are also the most annoying Reddit/Discord posters.

>>97709277
Honestly, I don't see the point in EMPs at all in RED.

For 500 eddies, the enemy throwing an EMP at you could buy 5 frag grenades. Taking 6d6 damage is more crippling than 2 pieces of cyberware being disabled (Unless your character has all their limbs replaced, and their eyes, etc) Even then the effectiveness goes down the more ware they have, yeah you hit their toxin binders and Nasal filters.

Not really stopping them from shooting you, though. Same goes for the players, being able to deal 30d6 over five turns is way more useful than a single EMP.

>>97709450
What the EMP disables can be extremely important and how many people you can hit with the same EMP.

Surprise a bunch of Strommers with an EMP and you can gets some juicy hits; the Ref would be a huge asshole to actively choose only ware that is irrelevant for the combat (and, mind you, most NPCs don't have the pile of ware that PCs have padding out their lists, so a second EMP/microwaver/etc will increasingly climb the list.

Also, Armor Piercing is fine if you're trying to kill someone; less good if you're trying to take them alive or unharmed.

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>>97709450
>being able to deal 30d6 over five turns is way more useful than a single EMP.
When you put it like that...

>>97709499
>Second EMP
I'd rather the players do 60d6 damage over 10 turns.

>>97650596
How my table handled this is I mini-GM for our Netrunner. I basically get a heads up if our GM needs an architecture. Gen it fast a day before and when it comes to initiative order I'll pull the Netrunner's player aside on their turn to speedfire through all their actions while everyone else is taking their turn and I take mine quickly if needed.

Saves our GM from having to also learn netrunning and keeps the pace, also helps the netrunner knows the fucking rules.

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How bloated is Shadowrun 3e? I want to write a strange political thriller game of assassinations, with the early 00s pre-smartphone tech, and 3e seems to fit. I hear however, that it is the peak of bloat.

>>97681514
>Combat is a slog
This is purely a new-player experience, and if you have an IQ in the triple digits, you'll quickly realize having melee combatants go in to ablate armor with punches/stabs or have the gun using characters focus early with high damage single shot weapons is the best way to punch through armor to snowball the fights in their favor. Once armor has been ablated 3-4 times, swap to lighter hitting multi-attack weapons to clean those targets up.

Always get REF to 8 to dodge bullets and increase your change to shoot niggas, and be sure to lean in hard on the skills you want to be good at (jack of all trades style of skill distribution is a terrible idea from what I've seen). Play into your strengths as much as possible as a PC.

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Hey homies... I am going to start a campaign with 5 players end of April.

I played Cyberpunk 2020 over 30 sessions in 2005 or so. Right before v3.

I played Shadowrun 3 well over 100 sessions, and SR4 maybe 40 sessions. All from 2004-2008

Just curious. Should I try to grab the Shadowrun 5/6 content? Should I do a Cyberpunk RED? Should I just do Shadowrun 3/4 since I know it the best (also SR4 content on Humble right this second could be nice). Have not used either system in 20 years. Always did other systems like Delta Green or whatever the fuck for one shots or smaller campaigns. Friends want a longer campaign instead of a one off.

Just wanted to know what system people like/prefer if they have tried any of them to compare. I know this is Cyberpunk general, but I have a feeling those most likely would have played both here. Pretty sure we want it to be in the same realm of what Cyberpunk/Shadowrun offer though.

I wanted to do a soft launch of an idea I have here >>97651318
As in: a mission that's roughly like the campaign idea I have but it's done in maybe 2-3 sessions.

Basically one of the player loves in a hab block that's under lockdown because a gang came in, screwed up the net architecture and put it in lockdown.

My idea is that my players are in the lockdown, or they have to penetrate the lockdown from outside, and take on the gang that's holding an entire block hostage.

My difficulties are
1) what is the reason for the lockdown?

I'm going for that there's either a retired solo who fucked up the gang boss, and the boss finally found him and they're here for revenge. I don't know if making the plot tangential to whatever the characters are doing is the move, though. But bodyguard duty feels overdone

2)What kind of non-combat difficulties do they face?

This is kind of a sticking point for me. I have zero idea of what they could be doing to get out.

I'd love some suggestions to what you think they could be doing.
I have a netrunner, exec and a nomad as the players.

>>97715275
>>97715275
I think it's better to go with the system you know like the back of your pocket since even if it's flawed, you'll have experience mitigating the flaws.
But first ask your players if they have any preferences or experience with the systems.

I can tell from experience that Cyberpunk RED can be successfully used as "easy mode", the PCs are tankier and the power differential between "builds" is lessened compared to 2020 or Shadowrun. It's very easy for someone new to RPGs to create a "useless" character in Shadowrun with the priority system, 2020 has two very obvious "god stats". RED flattened the power level for starting characters.

>>97715726
I feel some people exaggerate how level the playing field is in RED by pretending NPCs are all going to be on the same level, but with the exception of a few risky edge cases it's true that the peaks of optimization are less steep than in 2020 or Shadowrun.

>>97715629
You don't actually need to make the PCs involved with the retired solo to have the lockdown be an adventure. Getting caught up and needing to get out alive is plenty good of a plot; though if your players want to pick sides to do so you should let them.

So far as non-combat difficulty; it seems to me like this is a lot like Dread (2012), so you can take a bunch of inspiration from that. Dilapidated levels, locked gates, uncooperative and scared residents, dodgy computer systems, trying to get assistance or information in or out of the lockdown.

Your nomad might have a little trouble getting to do his kind of thing in an all-indoor environment unless there's like a big atrium or indoor park or wide hallways and stuff like that. I'm not going to suggests it for the entire job, but if you want to let him drive some, I'd make carve outs for things like a chase through an underground garage or motorbikes the crew could steal to ambush gangsters down a long hall and so on.

>>97715726
>It's very easy for someone new to RPGs to create a "useless" character in Shadowrun with the priority system, 2020 has two very obvious "god stats"

tbf this is an issue in Red too. You can easily fuck a starting character over by giving them a well rounded stat spread or buying the wrong gear at character creation. Alot of little noob traps like sniper rifles and heavy armor.

You can also start with negative humanity, effectively forcing you to make a new character.

>>97717851
You wouldn't be able to have negative humanity in RED as a starting character unless you paid for it specifically; since Humanity Loss from ware is set numbers in character gen-- you wouldn't go over 'by accident'.

Snipers and Heavy Armor are both fine. I will say you need to pay a little attention on gear, but template characters have good guidelines on what you may want or need.

>>97718586
>but template characters have good guidelines on what you may want or need.

If anything the opposite is true. They encourage you to spread your stats evenly and spend lots of eddies on bad gear.

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>>97719296
I have no idea what you're on about dude. The templates are pretty reasonable across the board.

Rockerboy gets a VHP and some status grenades with the option of melee, and all his performance kit and ware.

Solo comes with an AR, a VHP and a Heavy Melee or Shield. He comes smart-link ready and can start with a Sandy; the only thing he lacks is a pile of utility gear.

Netrunner comes with a VHP and a complete deck that can either be selected for flexibility or specialized out of the box (I'm partial to "Armor, Sword, Eraser, Sword, Worm for the Stealth Netrunning Rules they added").

Tech comes with an AR or Shotgun and a flashbang and a duffel bag full of bullshit that nobody else will remember to take. If they forget it they can make it anyways, so what?

Medtech comes with an AR or Shotgun with Smokes and Incendiary which are an excellent crowd control option. They don't need a bunch of bullshit though since most people will be taking them for pharma, but they have the tools needed to use their medicine.

Media is a bit boring with the VHP or HP, but is another gear heavy loadout like the Tech. VSA or A. Hearing are both acceptable ware.

Lawman gets a laundry list of weapon options, a shield or smokes and basically has everything he needs to beat-cop LARP. He's just light on cyberware.

Execs get an Armani suit, which would be a bit boring if they didn't also get a fucking free apartment and people to carry and to all the other shit.

Fixer gets to be a dual-wielding gigachad with an okay EDC with mixed ware. Really no big deal what he has, it's literally his job to get more stuff.

Nomad has a car and everything you could possibly think to stuff into one, including a mixed melee/pistol loadout that's gonna be good for a lot of encounters.

I don't think I would have a problem giving any of these loadouts to new players.

>>97719565
it's the stat spreads that are more the issue, but even so they have decidedly mid kits.

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What gun is this mamacita holding here?

>>97720825
My deadass being like "The design indicates Militech but I can't say which one."
>The word "Militech" is beneath in block letters

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Played my first game of RED last week, and this thursday we'll be meeting up again to make out characters.
One of the players is more or less dead set on a netrunner, another is strongly considering nomad, the 3rd is completely unsure, and I'm thinking of making an exec.

I'm imagining her as being a high-powered cutthroat bitch who got into martial arts because it's just another way to dominate people, so combat wise I will be judoing gonks up close, or shooting them with a conceal carry heavy pistol, because she might work for in-plain-sight type infiltration, subterfuge and sabotage.
Out of combat she will be doing classic suit'n'tie nigga shit, negotiations, intimidation, deception, and eventually I want to grab the mood eyes, make them pink to pretend to be horny so gonks drop their guard around me so they'll be easier to wrap around my finger to separate and take out stealthily.
My starting exec hanger-on will likely be a techie to take care of our gear, and tech stuff that I'm not good enough to handle.

I will be bumping the Body to 12 at char creation with a Sigma frame and its pre-req aug.
Is this an okay statline for her?

Writing this down I'm starting to realize that I want to play agent47, but with extra estrogen.

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>>97724390
That's a pretty good spread for a stealth character. This was mentioned a thread or two ago and if you're all new players your referee probably won't use it too extensively but two alternate ways to hurt players is poisons (Resist Torture/Drugs, Will) and EMP (Cyberware, Tech). You might be able to get away with EMP because a lot of hardened cyberware upgrades exists (black chrome has one specifically for borgware, i.e your implanted linear frame) but look at how nasal binders got power-creeped by Hope Reborn. When we get new adventure gigs in 2-3 years we might see super EMP that overwhelms standard hardening.

But at character creation if you want to be efficient you should be investing at getting skills to 6 rather than evenly spreading them around. That's because at chargen skills are skills (1 point costs 1, 6 points costs 6) but during gameplay skills cost increase linearly (1 point costs 20, but getting to 6 points costs 420 blaze it in total and by RAW you'll be lucky to get 40-50 IP/4 hour session but most referees are way more generous). If you get to 4 in each skill (200 IP total) you'd roll +9, so against the common DV: 13 (need a 14 to beat it) you'd succeed 60% of the time which is pretty good. And you can use Luck too in a pinch.

Personally I'd favor Resist Drugs/Torture because it is both defensive but also applies to drugs you willingly take like synthcoke and laces.

If you have a techie NPC in your retinue and your referee uses the home sweet home DLC one of the really fun options lets techs triple their work output after two sessions. Other players may protest (I know the netrunner suite let's them develop netrunner gear and make an automated defense system) but your tech could make tons of grenades and ammo churned out daily. There is another upgrade that lets your exec team gain and spend IP too, so maybe you'd want to grab that first and explain the benefits of a tech slave to your crew.

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>>97724390
Also if you want the full Agent 47 experience I suggest this bad boy. Normal takedowns take 4 turns where you can't risk failing a brawling check (but this isn't so bad since you'd also be dealing 12 direct damage every turn after the 1st, so pretty soon your foe would be taking critical wound penalties and give you an edge). But this cyberware lets you knock someone out in as little as 2 turns.

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>>97727851
>>97727862
Awesome, thanks, anon!

Good info about not spreading the starting skill points around, and instead focusing on a handful of skills.

I already had a starting 6 in resist torture/ drugs to minimize the risk of spilling the beans on corp/ party secrets in the case I'd get captured or sth as a result of a scuffed gig.

>>97724390
I'd bump MOVE and WILL up to 8 and dump a couple of other stats, but pretty good regardless.

>>97717851
It's still an issue, but little compared to 2020.
An unoptimised RED character can still pew pew at mooks and do something or just lob a grenade.
An unoptimised 2020 character just dies before even getting their first Action.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cyberpunktcg/the-official-cyberpunk-trading-card-game/creator
Card game (with anime)
https://gamefound.com/en/projects/go-on-board/cyberpunk-2077-the-board-game
Board game
https://screenrant.com/cyberpunk-2077-chrome-rush-official-announcement/
Arcade racer
https://www.laigames.com/games/cyberpunk-2077-turf-wars
Arcade shooter

But it's impossible to make a Cyberpunk 2077 RPG book for setting and gear. CD Projekt RED is too stingy with the license.

>>97731655
Yeah, the problem has always been R.Tal not wanting to write 2077 books for whatever reason. The EMK was a low effort copy pasted book to shut people up and I don't think they ever had concrete plans to follow up on it.

You think a small publisher would leverage their connection to a popular AAA game franchise more, but R.Tal seem weirdly committed to the Red setting despite it's middling reception.

>>97732116
>Fourth best selling ttrpg ever
>Middling reception
Sure Anon, why not

>>97729239
Minmax protis Anon:
while in chargen you dont pay progressively more and more IP per skill level, after chargen you do.
Taking a level in Tech is always better than learning ANY technical skills whatsoever, since tech rank gives you like 8 skills in price of 3.
If you're a corporate (which seems like you're planning on doing) and a dick at the same time (comes with the territory I guess) you can get free living space from your role rank and then rent it with say, a 20% discount to your party whom will most likely be happy to get cheaper housing. for a nice passive income.

>>97731655
>>97732116
Don't worry, as soon as they are done with the card game, the board game, the arcade racer, the arcade shooter, the caveman game, and the final fantasy (???) game then they'll get right on that 77 supplement. Ignore that none of the people that worked on 77 and are passionate about it work at RTal, and ignore that no one at RTAL is very passionate about Cyberpunk as a setting. It's fine, don't worry, keep the faith, any minute now. May I interest you in a video game crossover supplement in these trying times? How about another Elflines Online supplement? The delays just mean that they have all the more time to put their passion into the project, right?

New bread:
>>97735636