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Author Topic: Cyberpunk RED  (Read 12233 times)

Kyle Aaron

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #30 on: November 15, 2020, 09:54:07 PM »
There's nothing inherently wrong with a high page count.
I've been gaming since 1983. I've yet to see a game that couldn't have been written in 48 digest-sized pages instead.
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SHARK

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #31 on: November 15, 2020, 11:32:58 PM »
Greetings!

I hope that they go broke. It is good that their audience of customers dwindle to nothing, and their entire company goes bankrupt. They all need to be standing in the Unemployment line, and begging.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
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Torque2100

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #32 on: November 16, 2020, 07:39:32 AM »
Cyberpunk 2020 is one of my all time favorite RPGs. I've already pre-ordered the physical copy through my FLGS and I will be buying a copy of the PDF through DTRPG.

I am a huge fan of Interlock and I am looking forward to this game.

Panzerkraken

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #33 on: November 16, 2020, 10:23:36 AM »
I bought the .pdf within seconds of its release.

Overall, I like it. There is some page bloat, mostly centered around the idea of having quick lists in the chargen section that have the information necessary to create the character, get them their skills and gear etc, but then repeating all the information later in the book in the gear section.

They've done pretty extensive changes to the Interlock system in it, a lot of which can be seen in the Witcher (HP for example), although they've changed the crit system so it's not quite the exercise it was in The Witcher.

In answer to the FNFF question, it's close to the same, pretty much all the basic stuff is there, but there's some callback to the range-and-DN tables from CP2013. There's no more hit locations, every shot is assumed to hit the body unless you aim for the head (at a -8). Hit location granularity comes up in the new crit system, where when you roll damage, if you roll 2 or more 6's you create a critical hit, which deals an extra 5 points of damage and causes an effect, both of which bypass armor.

Roles are even more classlike, which I guess makes sense with the massive popularity of D&D-descended games in the US Market. The role skills have been seriously expanded with new options and fiddly bits that you can play around with, or just leave aside most of the time if you like. Combat Awareness, for instance, lets you shift the points around into different combat-related abilities such as Awareness Rolls, To-Hit rolls, Damage, etc. So it reduces the numbers it grants by spreading it around other areas. Nomads have been merged with Runners (Riggers), adding their Moto skill to Drive, but the family aspect is still there, as you have clan rank and family motor pool as other aspects of the skill.

Executives (Corporates) and Lawmen (Cops) have neat spreads where they can call for backup (Lawmen) to bring in some combat mooks, or have detailed personal employees (Exec) who might be personal assistant by day, and legbreaker by night. Execs also have a lot of their needs taken care of by their employer, but that has its own set of strings.

Medtechs and Techs have a slew of abilities, and each point in their Role skill provides them with two points to spread into the various aspects of those abilities, things like upgrading gear or inventing new gear complement the old Jury Rig aspect of the Techie, while the Medtech has Surgery (advanced MedTech), Pharmaceuticals (really nice boosts from drugs that don't addict the user), and Cryotank operations.

I felt like for all the size of the document, it still felt like they might have planned on 2 books, then just pasted them together in order to get the game out the door. It works for me, but I wind up making heavy use of the bookmarks on the .pdf and the CTRL+F function to get around. There's also a general lack of the brand-minded specific gear items that sort of became the hallmark of CP2020. One of my players from my old CP2020 game already commented wondering how he was supposed to tell the difference between a Sternmeyer Type 35 and a Mustang Arms 10mm now. Mechanically, they're pretty much the same.  I can see how I'd deal with it in game, but I feel like the video-gameification that Mike brought back when he went to work on Crimson Skies, and sloppily tried to implement in V3.0 hasn't completely gone away. I can see WHY they do it, and I've heard his explanation for it, but it's just one of those things I always felt was a differentiator between Cyberpunk and Shadowrun (where as a concept, the generic pistol has been a thing since 2e).

Production wise, I like the rest of the book. Nice art, layout is readable with a minimum of silly fonts, etc.
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Alderaan Crumbs

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #34 on: November 16, 2020, 01:08:07 PM »
Greetings!

I hope that they go broke. It is good that their audience of customers dwindle to nothing, and their entire company goes bankrupt. They all need to be standing in the Unemployment line, and begging.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

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VisionStorm

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #35 on: November 16, 2020, 04:24:47 PM »
There's nothing inherently wrong with a high page count.
I've been gaming since 1983. I've yet to see a game that couldn't have been written in 48 digest-sized pages instead.

I don't know about that. 48 pages seems kinda limited for some games (specially if you include spell entries, skill descriptions, "Feats" or similar Advantages/Disadvantages, etc.), but I do question the actual size of the audience that supposedly wants 400+ books left and right.

Jaeger

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #36 on: November 16, 2020, 06:38:24 PM »
It seems that CP2020 was done by 1989 design standards.

Considering Cyberpunk 2020 was 1990 that is as expected.

But Cyberpunk Red is actually being released in the Year 2020... And still has big skill lists....

Its like when the PF2 developers said that they never played or so much as took one look at 5e when they were developing PF2.

IMHO, simply no excuse for not making the system more accessible.

The overwhelming majority of the OSR does not use THAC0.

Long skill lists need to die in the same dumpster fire.

« Last Edit: November 16, 2020, 06:43:06 PM by Jaeger »
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HappyDaze

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #37 on: November 16, 2020, 07:05:41 PM »
It seems that CP2020 was done by 1989 design standards.

Considering Cyberpunk 2020 was 1990 that is as expected.

But Cyberpunk Red is actually being released in the Year 2020... And still has big skill lists....

Its like when the PF2 developers said that they never played or so much as took one look at 5e when they were developing PF2.

IMHO, simply no excuse for not making the system more accessible.

The overwhelming majority of the OSR does not use THAC0.

Long skill lists need to die in the same dumpster fire.
I think I already mentioned that I don't see CPR as making any effort to pull in new gamers. Instead it's a nostalgia bomb for old CP players. Those are the ones that will often pay big money for a big, pretty book.

Spike

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #38 on: November 16, 2020, 07:35:18 PM »

Considering Cyberpunk 2020 was 1990 that is as expected.

But Cyberpunk Red is actually being released in the Year 2020... And still has big skill lists....

Its like when the PF2 developers said that they never played or so much as took one look at 5e when they were developing PF2.

IMHO, simply no excuse for not making the system more accessible.

The overwhelming majority of the OSR does not use THAC0.

Long skill lists need to die in the same dumpster fire.
[/quote]

Dafuq? Are skill lists like collars now? You can tell what decade that book was released by how big their collars are, man. That's so seventies!

Did I miss something and Gaming is now 'trendy'? We do it because it makes us cool?   So, if Pondsmith just waited until big skill lists were back in fashion you'd be all over this motherfucker?

Its a fucking game for fucks sake. Some people still play GURPS you know? I mean, they released fourth Edition GURPS in, what, the last ten years or so and its skill list makes Cyberpunks look like Vanilla Ice.

And what's this shit about OSR and 5e and, I assume Pathfinder?  You won't like CP:Red until its made by Hasbro and Solo is just a skin for Fighters?   If you are complaining that not all games are 5e (which, honestly, it sorta seems like you are doing), I got news for you, bro. Not everyone wants to play 5e when they sit down with their pathfinder buddies, or when they pull out a Cyberpunk Game, or god forbid... GURPS (I hear their skill list is now OVER 9000!!!!... skills. Run, don't walk. )





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rytrasmi

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #39 on: November 16, 2020, 07:42:52 PM »
I've been gaming since 1983. I've yet to see a game that couldn't have been written in 48 digest-sized pages instead.
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lordmalachdrim

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #40 on: November 16, 2020, 10:15:02 PM »
It seems that CP2020 was done by 1989 design standards.

Considering Cyberpunk 2020 was 1990 that is as expected.

But Cyberpunk Red is actually being released in the Year 2020... And still has big skill lists....

Its like when the PF2 developers said that they never played or so much as took one look at 5e when they were developing PF2.

IMHO, simply no excuse for not making the system more accessible.

The overwhelming majority of the OSR does not use THAC0.

Long skill lists need to die in the same dumpster fire.

Oh, I see the problem here. You are one of those mental midgets that infest the hobby today. It must really impair your ability to accomplish anything not being able to count past 20 or to follow Attack score - AC = Target Number

Abraxus

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #41 on: November 16, 2020, 11:33:08 PM »
I don't necessary hate or dislike long skill lists. Too short and then it seems like every new book has a new skill to make up for the lack of skills. Too many and it can sometimes feel like a chore making a character and sometimes redundant skills. As long as the rules are clear and concise short or long skill lists won't kill my interest in a game. Though I prefer the middle option skill lists that are neither too short or too long.

Either way I will probably skip on Cyberpunk Red simply because I am more of a fan of Shadowrun and because of Mike Pondsmith suddenly jumping on the SJW kool-aid drinking bandwagon.

As for the PF2 DEvs saying the never looked at 5E to develop PF2. Yeah they are full of bullshit. They claimed that their was never a need for PF2 and suddenly once 5E was announced out of the blue a product called Pathfinder Unchained appeared on the release list totally by sheer coincidence I am sure. Which included many elements that went first in Starfinder than PF2. Other than that yeah I am sure the PF2 devs "never" looked at 5e. Just as Im sure the 5E devs "never" looked at PF 1E while making their new edition. After all why look at an rpg that was taking away sales and market share for inspiration or anything.

VisionStorm

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #42 on: November 17, 2020, 06:12:03 AM »
This side discussion about skills sprung out of a post I made in the first page, but the direction it seems to be heading it looks like its missing some context, so I'm gonna self quote just in case. Jaeger may have his own reasons for not liking long skill lists, but this is the full post he initially quoted when he touched on this topic (last two paragraphs, specifically)...

I got the starter kit in PDF when it came out and I cannot believe how little value it actually had, and I am a serious fan of CP2020.

I want to say deep and meaningful things about Mad Mike and where he is going wrong and why, but honestly...  honestly I think the problem is me and my nostalgia for 2020.

I agree with all the above or at least I had thought I did. After the starter set came out I found it...lets just say it's in the basement with a much larger then I want to admit collection of books I'm slowly donating to the local library. I went and picked up a new copy of 2020 (My old one was lost in a move years ago) and after rereading the book and running a couple of sessions I realized I just don't like it nearly as much as I thought I had.

I always loved the way that Cyberpunk 2020/Interlock handled task resolution and “classes” (which are more like starting templates with one special ability, rather than straightjackets), but I always felt it had way too many attributes and a few more skills than were necessary. I mean, the game has THREE freaking social attributes (one of which doubles as willpower), two intelligence attributes (one for actual thinking, a separate one for tech) a movement rate attribute and a luck attribute. None of that crap is necessary.

Attributes should just be one attribute per core function. ONE interaction attribute is enough (charisma-type attributes are already weak enough without splitting them into three) and you don’t need a specialized attribute to deal with tech—that’s just an intellectual task. Movement rate does NOT need a stat. Everyone should just get the same base movement rate and higher movement rates should just be an Advantage/Feat/Talent type of thing (which don’t exist in Cyberpunk 2020, but should) and/or handled as cybernetic enhancements. And I’m not sure Luck should exist as an attribute and I always thought it was barely useful compared to basically every other attribute—even the split up social ones. That’s just too much crap to spread your stat points over.

Then the game suffers from the same issue as most skill-based systems, which is specificity. Every tiny, uber specialized task is its own separate skill, which you have to level independently of every other skill that’s essentially the same thing, but a different specialty. Like half a dozen piloting skills to cover what’s essentially driving vehicles, so that if you max one but don’t spread every single skill point you have available learning the rest you turn into a complete retard whenever you hop into anything but your chosen vehicle.

I love skill-based systems and consider them superior to class-based systems, but implementation like this is crap. As I heard someone say before, uber specific skill-based systems like these turn more into being about what you don’t know than about what you do. There’s just too much interrelated crap that’s really just variants of each other to spread your points around. They should just be general skills with specialties as a bonus thing to cover the specific stuff.

The problem with long skill lists isn't just accessibility, but that even from the PoV of what they try to embody they make NO sense. They're invariably endless variations of the same type of action treated as separate abilities, so that if you master one skill, but not another that's basically THE SAME FUCKING THING (but a different vehicle or type of melee weapon), you're inexplicability completely and utterly incompetent in that other skill despite both being essentially specialties of the same core function. Which is NOT how skills work in reality. People who know how to fight with swords do not suddenly forget how to fight because they pick up an axe.

This sort of system is overly punishing and inefficient, and does not reflect reality. This isn't even a dig against long skill lists (in the sense of defining specific functions), specifically, but about implementation. Specific functions ideally should still exist, but they should NOT be treated as separate unrelated skills, but as specialties of general skills dealing with core, universal functions, like melee combat, ranged combat, technology, academic knowledge or piloting. That way you have general competency in one core function, but may still define things you've specifically mastered within those areas of activity, rather than spread Every. Single. Point. you've got into a dozen variations of the same thing, that might not even come up during play, just to have mild competency in those areas.

HappyDaze

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #43 on: November 17, 2020, 07:06:09 AM »
The problem with long skill lists isn't just accessibility, but that even from the PoV of what they try to embody they make NO sense. They're invariably endless variations of the same type of action treated as separate abilities, so that if you master one skill, but not another that's basically THE SAME FUCKING THING (but a different vehicle or type of melee weapon), you're inexplicability completely and utterly incompetent in that other skill despite both being essentially specialties of the same core function. Which is NOT how skills work in reality. People who know how to fight with swords do not suddenly forget how to fight because they pick up an axe.
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rytrasmi

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Re: Cyberpunk RED
« Reply #44 on: November 17, 2020, 09:43:00 AM »
The problem with long skill lists isn't just accessibility, but that even from the PoV of what they try to embody they make NO sense. They're invariably endless variations of the same type of action treated as separate abilities, so that if you master one skill, but not another that's basically THE SAME FUCKING THING (but a different vehicle or type of melee weapon), you're inexplicability completely and utterly incompetent in that other skill despite both being essentially specialties of the same core function. Which is NOT how skills work in reality. People who know how to fight with swords do not suddenly forget how to fight because they pick up an axe.

This sort of system is overly punishing and inefficient, and does not reflect reality. This isn't even a dig against long skill lists (in the sense of defining specific functions), specifically, but about implementation. Specific functions ideally should still exist, but they should NOT be treated as separate unrelated skills, but as specialties of general skills dealing with core, universal functions, like melee combat, ranged combat, technology, academic knowledge or piloting. That way you have general competency in one core function, but may still define things you've specifically mastered within those areas of activity, rather than spread Every. Single. Point. you've got into a dozen variations of the same thing, that might not even come up during play, just to have mild competency in those areas.

I respectfully disagree for two reasons. 1) Swords and axes are used very differently; they have different striking motions, muscle groups, and tactics. Granted this is a quibble over one example, and I agree that in real life being skilled in combat in general affects different weapon skills. 2) That said, in a game your solution would get lost in the mushiness of rolling dice. Say my sword skill is 60% and my axe skill is 10%. Your argument seems to be that some sword skill overflows into axe, so axe should really be what 30%? Thing is, I'm mostly going to use sword anyway and the few times I use axe, the difference between 10% and 30% is not going to register as statistically significant. If I use axe to the extent that 30% vs 10% does become statistically significant, then axe should still artificially suck for sake of narrative. If multiple weapons skills are all close in level and training in one means training in another, then what's the point in specializing? Without forcing specialization, choices become gray and characters become samey. I might as well throw points into bladed weapons because it benefits sword and axe. Soon all characters are all pretty good at both. IMO, it's better to have the sword guy and the axe guy, even if a little unrealistic.
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 09:44:46 AM by rytrasmi »
The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out
The ones that crawl in are lean and thin
The ones that crawl out are fat and stout
Your eyes fall in and your teeth fall out
Your brains come tumbling down your snout
Be merry my friends
Be merry