So I've often pondered the concept of how to get a Lawman (Cyberpunk Red version of the Cop) integrated into a typical Cyberpunk adventuring group.
I'm no expert on police ranks and procedures, so I figured I'd run this idea by the forum for critique.

My idea is the concept of an Investigator. Somewhere in-between a beat cop and a proper detective. In the wild and wooly world of Night City, 2045, an Investigator has a lot of leeway in how they go about investigating crime. Think Judge Dredd street judges, but toned down.

That way a player can play a Lawman without having to constantly come up with excuses to break away from assigned duties. Investigators follow up on crime scenes until a Detective is assigned to the case. I'm not super worried about it being "realistic" so much as facilitating gameplay.

If you want sufficiently dark future, make cops into gig jobs.  Training?  Oath to protect and serve?  Haha okay boomer, 2045 cops just sign in to UberBadge, pay $20 for a license, then receive a commission for every crime they "solve".  What constitutes a solved crime depends on which minimum-wager is staffing the hotline that night, and they hate having to fill out lots of forms, so if you want to be paid, best use small words on your report and don't cause too much collateral damage.

Undercover cop for the win.

Have the PC be after a bigger bad that gives them a bit of a pass for getting into shenanigans with the other pc's.

Big crime boss, mega Corp evils, political corruption, police corruption! Loads of things to make a complicated house of cards that the undercover pc will have to deal with sooner or later.

The real fun would be how long the other characters can be kept in the dark...

Watch the series Banshee on HBOMax. "Sheriff Hood" would fit into many CP games.

Quote from: HappyDaze on August 04, 2021, 02:31:12 AM
Watch the series Banshee on HBOMax. "Sheriff Hood" would fit into many CP games.

Also the film RONIN with Robert De Niro - a very typical shadowrun/cyberpunk type adventure.

Robocop.

Who says they have to be an active cop? they could have been ousted from the force in disgrace, or left because the forces were even more corrupt than they could handle.

Quote from: Godsmonkey on August 04, 2021, 09:41:40 AM
Who says they have to be an active cop? they could have been ousted from the force in disgrace, or left because the forces were even more corrupt than they could handle.

Quote from: Cyberpunk Red Rulebook
The Lawman's Role Ability is Backup. With this ability, Lawmen can call upon
the help of a group of fellow officers, based on the Lawman's Rank and the
conditions under which they make the call. This Backup is armed and armored
based on their Rank

You could have some sort of story about a bunch of ex-lawmen who have "got each others' backs" and come running when one of them presses the panic button but it stretches credulity a bit even for Cyberpunk.

I find the Role Abilities a bit unnecessary and annoying anyway. The technical ones like Netrunning or Medic are just skills and that's fine, but the ones that call up flocks of NPCs seem like they could be a pain in play. I would be tempted to do away with Roles and fold the technical Role Abilities into skills. 

Quote from: Valatar on August 04, 2021, 01:57:01 AM
If you want sufficiently dark future, make cops into gig jobs.  Training?  Oath to protect and serve?  Haha okay boomer, 2045 cops just sign in to UberBadge, pay $20 for a license, then receive a commission for every crime they "solve".  What constitutes a solved crime depends on which minimum-wager is staffing the hotline that night, and they hate having to fill out lots of forms, so if you want to be paid, best use small words on your report and don't cause too much collateral damage.

I feel thats more SLA though

It seems like there are a lot of possible models for law enforcement in cyberpunk, not sure that all of them would work as player characters, though. In particular, it would be hard to mix an earnest cop in with the criminal scum of a typical cyberpunk crew. But here are some ideas:

The Corrupted Cop: A police officer who, in their own mind, serves the greater good, but employs criminal methods to do so. Like, say, working with a cyberpunk crew. Still, the corrupted cop has a line they won't cross.

RoboCop: nuff said

SWAT Cop: a militarized police officer, more soldier than beat cop.

Ex-Cop: A former police officer turned Traveller character. Maybe they know stuff. Or maybe they want to balance their ledger before the end.

Corporate Cop: Works for the private security arm of a megacorp. Or maybe they did up until today.

Mall Cop: This guy wants to do the right thing. He might be doomed, or he might be the last good guy in the world. Either way, he's operating without much backup.

Dad Cop: he's working for a big fish so that his kids will have somewhere safe to grow up.

Territorial Cop: Maybe a store or hotel detective, or hired by a small enclave or hospital. He keeps his sector clean, and doesn't want any trouble.

The Mole: A cop who really serves another organization. Maybe that's the mafia. Maybe it's the player characters. Think Nene Romanova from Bubblegum Crisis.

The Deputy: a rural officer operating on the fringes of the big city. May have the luxury of personal ethics.

The Equalizer: Ex-Spook, ex-spy, ex-military. They have a particular skill set. And if you can find them, maybe you can hire them. See Robin Hood, The Equalizer (TV version please), City Hunter, The A-Team.

There's A New Sheriff In Town: A skilled lawman from somewhere else, brought in to clean up the town and the department. But who do you trust? And can you trust the sheriff?

Valatar's "cops as mercs" is exactly what I've done in the past.

When I've played CP lawmen, I was "a dirty cop" who did shadowruns on the side to make cash. Unlike the other PCs, I had a day job

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 03, 2021, 11:06:35 PM
So I've often pondered the concept of how to get a Lawman (Cyberpunk Red version of the Cop) integrated into a typical Cyberpunk adventuring group.
I'm no expert on police ranks and procedures, so I figured I'd run this idea by the forum for critique.

My idea is the concept of an Investigator. Somewhere in-between a beat cop and a proper detective. In the wild and wooly world of Night City, 2045, an Investigator has a lot of leeway in how they go about investigating crime. Think Judge Dredd street judges, but toned down.

That way a player can play a Lawman without having to constantly come up with excuses to break away from assigned duties. Investigators follow up on crime scenes until a Detective is assigned to the case. I'm not super worried about it being "realistic" so much as facilitating gameplay.

   "Bodie... I AM AN FBI AGENT!!"   Problem solved.

Quote from: Valatar on August 04, 2021, 01:57:01 AM
If you want sufficiently dark future, make cops into gig jobs. 

I was in a game like this.  Police work was a corporate job and the good paying, well trained security firms dealt with specific corporate assets.

Normal crime against citizens that didn't impact a corp got handled by... Well, us.  It was a shit job, but technically we were our own bosses so long as we didn't need to talk to another block or a corp building.  Sometimes jurisdiction issues involved crossing a street.