Quote from: Bren;908914Now stealing genetic data or gene-tailored cell lines does make sense. And while it is a bit trite, evil pharma and biotech companies are an easy source for RPG villainy.

And though I'm not a Shadowrun fan and don't play cyberpunk, you should still totally post stuff for people to [strike]hack[/strike] use.

TSR did for Amazing Engine a setting called Chromesome. Which was a Biopunk setting where biotech and genemods had taken off instead of cybernetics.

CRKrueger's response was 100% spot on. I'll try to add a little more context.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Classic Genre Tropes is pretty high up on importance.

As CRKrueger said - CP2020 is oldschool cyberpunk and IZ2 is very much new-school. Though a lot of the elements of artificial life etc. could be found in later supplementary material for CP2020, you could even yank psionics from Mekton (or anything else for that matter, the Interlock system is exactly the same except for CP2020 uses static combat numbers for range attacks and Mekton allowed contested rolls).

The setting splats that were not strictly CP2020 also offered additional stuff that could neatly be tucked into CP2020's standard setting.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Combat speed is at a very high priority. But I also want to enjoy generalists and avoid/minimize munchkinism. I already heard the Savage Worlds issues with repeated shaken, (fixed yet?) and I already don't like the system for obfuscating probability through (i see as gimmicky) die sizes.

CP 2020 sounds super sexy with stat (1-10) + skill (1-10) + 1d10. As probability determinations go, that's sexy transparent and ready-made for on the fly adjudications.

After running a few combats with CP2020 - it flows blisteringly fast. Once you understand the damage-track and the increments, which is pretty easy, you will not even need to reference any table. And it can get pretty fucking lethal, as intended. CP2020 combat is designed for players to play smart. Play stupid, you'll end up dead pretty quickly.

The key to CP2020 and avoiding munckinism is to simply enforce the conceits already built into the game. Handguns are generally legal. Most hard body-armors require special permits. If you think walking about the city with a full-auto combat weapon out, you better expect some Police attention. All common-sense stuff. Outside the city, that's a different matter, obviously. I *highly* recommend reading "Home of the Brave" which is the America splatbook that covers *everything*. I'd also recommend reading 'Protect and Serve' - the Cop splatbook that covers all the procedural stuff on the law.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Mook rules are dirt easy to add to any system (use "0th or 1st lvls!" ) But if Savage has them baked into the cake for speed... not a strong sell. I hate having to reverse engineer something out instead of glom something on. I'm ok with death; I also know how to tweak (add mooks?) to make cakewalks.

CP2020 doesn't really need mook rules. Any damage taken in the game initiates a deathspiral that remarkably simulates the gritty reality of the genre. Getting patched up is expensive and a whip. It makes players with itchy trigger-fingers that manage to survive (and retain those fingers) more cautious. Literally anyone can die in a gunfight with a good shot. And PC's tend to be good shots as a rule (but not always).

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724I need more experience for how fast CP 2020 plays. Glowing commentary for Savage litters the internet — and I believe less than half of it from what I've seen of the system.

As I said before - after a couple of combats you'll absorb the damage track. Essentially every wound you take forces a Stun Save - modified with your BTM rating. As you take more damage your Stun penalty rises. Every four-wounds kicks you into a new stage. Each stage levies a higher stun penalty. When you get to the Mortal Stage - you're making Death Saves on top of Stun Saves. Since it goes to Mortal 10 - that means no character can take more than 40-points of damage. Most characters are dead *long* before that.

It goes *fast* barring the damage-phase where you might have to roll a lot of damage dice. The combat system "Friday Night Firefight" was designed to be "realistic" in the sense that gun-combat is extremely lethal. And it is. My general policy as a GM and players is that, combat is the last resort. But ya'know how it is.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Tech New lists for toys is nice. Not completely sold that I need to upgrade to the new WiFi/matrix modern paradigm, because sometimes I want to play a "period piece."

One of the things that many newer cyberpunk games tends of give short-shrift on is the life outside of the "Blade Runner-like cities" that help establish the bonfides of the game. CP2020 is no different, however the setting books "Home of the Brave" and the Nomad book "Neo-Tribes" paint a much broader picture of the setting that still uses conventional, almost post-apocalyptic conventions to describe life. So it's life with less "cyber", using conventional, even archaic weaponry that still are very much serviceable. In this respect "less is more" serves the game and the genre very well for rounding out possibilities of play. Aspects of the Road Warrior and Waterworld can and do exist in CP2020.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724My most important tech issue is transparent probability and known game breaking limits as examples (like restricted or banned weaponry or armor that mathematically make sense). From that I can design anything what I need. This is where SW swappable die sizes as a main stat function causes inconvenience.

CP2020 is very transparent with a few quibbles. Damage breakdowns is simple: caliber of round produces *generally* the same damage. 5.56 rounds? 5d6 damage. 7.62 rounds? 6d6+2. etc. You almost always know what you're getting. What differentiates weapons is the quality of the gun itself. Some guns give you accuracy bonuses, some don't. Poor quality weapons jam on a 1. Etc. Also, your ammo can have qualities themselves: High-explosive rounds, Armor Piercing, the dreaded Depleted Uranium rounds etc.

 What is legal and not legal is covered lightly in the main book, but covered extensively in Protect and Serve, and Home of the Brave. Mind you - there are permits for everything, but even having a permit will not necessarily save you against cops that think you're a menace. Generally handguns are legal, most military grade and heavy weaponry is highly restricted.

Armor tops out with Metal Gear - a brand of hard armor that essentially absorbs 30-points on every body-part. So yeah - on average, most bullets are going to bounce right off. Wearing that kind of armor attracts attention obviously. And there are armor-options as well. Memory Plastic will harden armor against AP rounds etc. There *are* armors heavier than Metal Gear - but they're very rare/specialized. The key to understanding how dangerous CP2020 combat is that even if you're wearing Metal Gear, someone opens up full-auto on you in close range, for example, with say a 6 Reflex and 6 Rifle skill - would only need a 15 to hit. An average roll would be 17 (5 on d10 +12 for Ref/skill) - plus full-auto would be an additional +3, not counting other features. So you're looking at a total of a 20. The rules for full-auto state that for every point scored over the target number to hit equals being struck by 1 bullet.

That means your guy with 30 armor just got hit 5-times for 6d6+2 each. Yeah he might live, but he's gonna be chewed the fuck up (damage lowers armor by 1 point per hit). This is where combat might slow up a bit. But it's generally not too bad.

That's about as extreme as it gets barring heavy weaponry, and head-shots etc.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Hacking Won't lie, the minigame aspect of this can be a real issue. Part of me was ready to just hand Netrunner decks between two players to duke it out and report back.

How hard is it to scrap CP 2020 subsystem system and adopt IZ 2.0 solutions through CP 2020 core mechanics?

Aint' gonna lie - it'll take a full re-write. That said, I'd have to go over it, I think modifying the CP2020 rules to follow the IZ2 is the *exact* direction it should go. I think it can be done but I'd have to sit down and really give it a deep dive. My gut reaction is it could be done tentatively with little pain. It would absolutely change some of the aspects of CP2020's netrunning - but that's not a bad thing.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Martial Arts I didn't think of it as a priority, but yeah, that shit was huge back in the day. Kinda nice to have it just to have it just in case we need to have a shameful circle jerk in the future. Who knows, I may feel the desperate need to mix Terminator & Naruto for unspeakably stupid reasons in the future?

How stable and robust was CP 2020/ system here? Not baseline crazy into the American Ninja spectrum?

Baseline - Martial Arts in the main book is potentially dangerous. It's *easy* to do and pretty fun. Once you start getting characters with cyberware and doing Muay Thai kicks with their cyberlegs - the damage is pretty brutal. But then it probably should be.

If you want to take it to the next level - you need the Pacific Rim book. They re-work the entire martial-arts systems into something more granular - with actual melee combat ranges of kicking, striking, trapping, and grappling. And lots of manuevers etc. I think, personally it was cool, but a bit overdone - but nothing you can't reign in as needed. If you want that dangerous hand-to-hand guy that is straight beating-that-ass, CP2020 has you covered - with the caveat that no one is fool-proof against a bullet to the melon.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Vehicles This is kinda big. Seen too much nonsense from Shadowrun and Warhammer 40k that I just can't take it anymore. How robust is CP 2020 lists to actual play? No gaping "we have no fucking clue about real life weaponry let alone imaginary one! Wanna kung-fu the ATV in half? Take a cannon blast to the chest?"

This one is easy. Vehicles are like dragons. *NO* cybered-up goon PC is going to take a vehicle weapon shot without either 1) being blown to smithereens  2) so badly damaged the next round is going to be spent looking up at the guy that just showed you, with his vehicle-mounted 20mm cannon, how mortal you actually are, and deliver you a soliloquy about what a dumb fucking retard you are thinking you could take a shot from his weapon, then blowing your armor-plated head off.

Heavy Weapons in CP2020 do *a lot* of damage. And they cut through armor (halved by default). The damage alone is usually enough to fuck you all the way to Valhalla's sloppy doorstep. Splash damage is applied *to every limb*. So yeah. The only way to reliably take out a vehicle is with another vehicle or having portable anti-vehicle weaponry. Can a PC damage an armored vehicle with cutting edge cyber-tech? Sure. But it will be pretty minimal. If you're talking about regular civilian vehicles - yeah you can chew those up pretty good.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908724Is it cogent enough that it passes the SWN common sense threshold? As in "Hand to Hand hasn't a prayer v. Ranged Large Arms, Ranged Arms hasn't a prayer v. Ground Ordinance, Ground Ordinance hasn't a prayer v. Air/Sea Ordinance, Air/Sea hasn't a prayer v. Space Ordinance,"?

Absolutely. With a couple of caveats. A PC can specialize in Hand-to-Hand and do quite well against gun-wielding opponents... if he can get into melee. If not? He's probably fucked. But the stakes go up higher from there with each category you named. The demarcation line is when you go from regular ordinance to anti-vehicle ordinance. There are very very narrow exceptions to this rule, and they're almost non-existent beyond this line.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908994Wow, that's like the dream ideas hammered out by friends seeking to make their own system. Totally going to forward that info to them.

I'd appreciate any learning failures from house ruling. What should I not tinker with? How strong is this chassis for DIY madness?

i.e. I am wondering if it would be faster to emulate Cinematic Cyberpunk (when the mood strikes!) by just adding Plot Armor as actual armor with defined soak + coverage? Or would it be better to use a higher "Toughness" value and heavily restrict armor availability?

Most heavy armor have what is called an EV Rating (Encumberance Rating) That number directly subtracts from your Reflex stat while wearing that armor. So it's something you can play with. You can also use some of the optional rules from the later printings - like Layering Armor (which I find a useful rule if you wanna get more granular).

There is very little that isn't common-sense once you understand the perspective the mechanics are trying to simulate.

There were no houserules I can think of that I didn't lift directly from Mekton. If I wanted a more cinematic game with less realism, I'd allow for defensive rolls rather than static target-numbers to hit. It requires ZERO work to port in. There's endless little tweaks you can do and justify with new gear. Just be careful about handing out big-ass weapons without corresponding social consequences (unless you're running a military game or something). Some of the big standard weapons can be scary.

Yeah, with Combat Sense for Solos and Reflex Boosters (which you could up the effects of a tad), using a Reflex test to avoid combat you can easily get into Bullet Time for the Cybergods.

CP2020 is completely old school rules in the sense that the rules model the world, balance comes from the setting, ie. you, not the designer.

I've run some games like that and yeah - it was crazy shit. Very over the top and Matrix as fuck.

Combat Sense in CP2020 only works on Initiative and Awareness checks - not "to hit" rolls. It USED to work for "to hit" rolls in the original Cyberpunk 2013.

Even still - Solos are dangerous as hell, as they should be.

In a game where guns are as deadly (deadlier?) than they are in real life, he who shoots first tends to be dangerous...

... assuming a better than real life level of accuracy however

the scary part being - you can do a called shot to any part of the body. 8 points of actual damage to any single limb at one time (after BTM modifiers) means that limb is rendered useless (unless it's a cyberlimb).

and head-shots are double-damage. Which makes having stylish headgear a pain in the ass if you care about looking good. And you always wanna look good in Cyberpunk!

Things to watch out for in CP2020:

Your realism has limits.  They go on about the 9mm vs .45 thing and then assign them the same damage code (2d6+1).  Cyberpunk doesn't differentiate between non-special rounds with high penetration vs high tissue damage.  So your best armor penetrator for common usage winds up being a 10ga slug.  

Limp mode.  The hit locations as written give you a 40% chance to hit the legs.  I didn't like it and went with the same chance of hitting the legs as the arms (since most people are firing at the CoM and you're about as likely to hit the smaller arms while doing that as you are to hit the (relatively) immobile legs below your target zone.  So I just changed the hit location chart to 1 - Head 2-6 Torso, 7- RArm, 8-LArm, 9-RLeg, 10-LLeg.  Also, keep in mind that the maximum damage a character can take to a limb is 12 before the limb suffers a traumatic amputation.  Not so for the torso.

Critical Failures.  I think a 10% chance of fumbling every roll is a bit high.  I had a situation where a group of solos pulled a three stooges set of rolls and shot each other, the principal, their super expensive guns exploded, and they bled out.  Great comedy, but it ended that game.

Watch out for armor creep.  Had a martial artist that was running around in 26 points of soft armor with an EV of 1 due to the armor layering rules.  The character was  getting fitted for "totally not cyberware" powergloves (sort of like power armor sleeves) when I had her ambushed and filled her full of holes for it.  But shotguns are a good equalizer.  They can shred up soft armor.

As for the combat sense bit.. the best representation of Combat Sense ad nausea was in The Fifth Element, when Bruce Willis' character first came up to the aliens holding hostages on the bridge.  He pokes his eyes around the corner and identifies them all (CS+Awareness/Notice+INT+d10 for combat situations) then pops around on his (CS+REF+d10) obnoxious initiative and takes some shots.  Then when he went out to 'negotiate' he did the same again, only with a quickdraw.  In all, pretty fun stuff.  

I really miss my CP2020 games, but the kids aren't old enough for them yet.

Quote from: Opaopajr;908853What does A Dirty World game offer that makes it worth getting if I wanna get my Blade Runner on?

Blade Runner, like a lot of Gibson's Sprawl series, is near-future noir.  Genre definitions are Nintendo Hard, but I kind of like the old "oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel" list.  ADW models this by tracking your character's values and mental state rather than their gun skill or constitution attribute - which is to say it's decidedly not physics simulation.  It's also not really narrative, so I don't think it trips the constantly-mutating-and-largely-mythical swiney storygame threshold, but if you're talking about doing noir in BRP it may not be to your taste.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;909151Your realism has limits.  They go on about the 9mm vs .45 thing and then assign them the same damage code (2d6+1).  Cyberpunk doesn't differentiate between non-special rounds with high penetration vs high tissue damage.  So your best armor penetrator for common usage winds up being a 10ga slug.  

I don't recall seeing that debate in CP2020, but 2d6+1 is standard pistol shooting.   Of course, you pretty much have to go with the substandard Solo of Fortune 2 (as I recall) to get 'modern' pistol ammo by default. Everything else is supposed to be caseless 'future calibers' as I recall, though there are some overlaps, as its only four years in the future, doncha know?

Of course: Shotguns seem to be the best combat weapon in most urban situations anyway.  Hell, GI's in WWI used them in trench warfare so successfully that Europe tried to ban them as military weapons all together as inhumane.

QuoteLimp mode.  The hit locations as written give you a 40% chance to hit the legs.  I didn't like it and went with the same chance of hitting the legs as the arms (since most people are firing at the CoM and you're about as likely to hit the smaller arms while doing that as you are to hit the (relatively) immobile legs below your target zone.

I see a lot of people complain about the frequency of head hits, so the leg thing isn't top of my mind. I do know that, almost coincidentally, the values of most of the hit locations are well within the margin of error from FBI shooting statistics. Not specific on the legs, mind you.  Of course, one thing not covered is that usually things like arm hits are ALSO torso hits, and so forth. Hollywood shooting.

QuoteCritical Failures.  I think a 10% chance of fumbling every roll is a bit high.  I had a situation where a group of solos pulled a three stooges set of rolls and shot each other, the principal, their super expensive guns exploded, and they bled out.  Great comedy, but it ended that game.

Big complaint about the rules, and it goes double for high enders. With only a d10 radomizer there ain't a lot of wiggle room in the system.  One solution is to use Luck points to offset critical fumbles, instead of just as an adder.  Might make Luck a more useful stat.

QuoteWatch out for armor creep.  Had a martial artist that was running around in 26 points of soft armor with an EV of 1 due to the armor layering rules.  The character was  getting fitted for "totally not cyberware" powergloves (sort of like power armor sleeves) when I had her ambushed and filled her full of holes for it.  But shotguns are a good equalizer.  They can shred up soft armor.

That... doesn't seem possible outside of Chromebook 4's fashion/armor rules. Well, not entirely, but:  Layers of armor add up quick, so I'm guessing this involved skin weave?

Great advice! Thanks everybody! (ADW sounds like a dip into lush narrative. As long as it doesn't go all FATE economy, or "sharing the speaking stick," on me it may be ok.)

Now I'm left wondering, 'why the hell no one reprinted CP if it is such a solid property?' The system sounds way more robust and resilient than it looks, with easier to spot weak points when tinkering, and it already looked like a hoss. I sorta want all that time back futzing around with FASA's well-intentioned flubs, or Catalyst's abortions.

So... Bolting on magic: how would you do it? And same thing, going B-movie Explosathon! nuts: how so?

If I were doing magic in Cyberpunk, and I did with one playtest supplement for my own, Id make it very limited in some manner.

My go-to example is Silent Möbius, a manga which came out in 89 and was adapted into an OVA in 91.

If CP2020 really does use the same system overall as Mekton then you could plug in its build system for spells from a limited pool. Or even have the PCs all "build" their own gear, cyberware, or magic from the same point limits and roll from there.

Quote from: Bren;908914How so? Unlike data, minerals have mass and size. A corporate spy can't steal 10 tons of iridium and hide it in her shiny, aluminum briefcase.

Its just a different kind of action. Your right, its not a spy it's a political/mercenary action that secure this resource. A good literary example would be "The Dogs of War".

Quote from: Spike;909172I don't recall seeing that debate in CP2020, but 2d6+1 is standard pistol shooting.   Of course, you pretty much have to go with the substandard Solo of Fortune 2 (as I recall) to get 'modern' pistol ammo by default. Everything else is supposed to be caseless 'future calibers' as I recall, though there are some overlaps, as its only four years in the future, doncha know?

They had that callout on old guns in the CP2020 book, generally they were a little weaker, but that was more a point of the ammo than anything else.  I would usually let people get "modern" cased rounds for old guns if they wanted to (I think they actually had prices for it in Blackhands' anyway).  For instance, the 5.56mm NATO from the M16 was listed at 4d6.  They also had their share of errors, like when they gave the original AK47 the same 7.62mm damage as the G3 or M60 were using (7.62x51mm was 6d6+2, but the AK used 7.62x39mm, which should have put it right around 4d6 as well...)

QuoteOf course: Shotguns seem to be the best combat weapon in most urban situations anyway.  Hell, GI's in WWI used them in trench warfare so successfully that Europe tried to ban them as military weapons all together as inhumane.

I see a lot of people complain about the frequency of head hits, so the leg thing isn't top of my mind. I do know that, almost coincidentally, the values of most of the hit locations are well within the margin of error from FBI shooting statistics. Not specific on the legs, mind you.  Of course, one thing not covered is that usually things like arm hits are ALSO torso hits, and so forth. Hollywood shooting.

Word.  I ran one game where I was strictly using the rules for penetration of bodies (I think they were in Listen Up) where your meat-shield would provide you their BOD in SP (plus any armor they had on, or skinweave, GSDA, etc) but that was it.  Functionally, if you're shot in the arm from the right angle, the round would get stopped by your bod on the way to your torso.  I forget the specific instance rules I was using though (something to do with obliques and round approach angles done on the fly IIRC).

QuoteBig complaint about the rules, and it goes double for high enders. With only a d10 radomizer there ain't a lot of wiggle room in the system.  One solution is to use Luck points to offset critical fumbles, instead of just as an adder.  Might make Luck a more useful stat.

My solution for the fumbles was to make a natural 1 an "imploding die", rolling again and subtracting, with another natural 1 resulting in a fumble.

QuoteThat... doesn't seem possible outside of Chromebook 4's fashion/armor rules. Well, not entirely, but:  Layers of armor add up quick, so I'm guessing this involved skin weave?

It was with those rules, after they came out I pretty much embraced them fully. The game was (continuity-wise) well up against the end of Shockwave, so it fit well enough.  I don't see any reason not to make those rules retroactive though.

One of my only major complaints about CP2020 was that it held on stubbornly to the randomized character generation, and I felt like that stymied players who wanted to make a specific character,  so I decided to change it, and slapped a simplified point-based character creation on it.  I felt like it worked well, and I have a .pdf of it if anyone wants.  However, it was for private use and is CHOCK FULL of 'borrowed' internet art without proper credits, so I won't hang it anywhere.  If someone wants to take a look, you can PM me and I'll email it.

Quote from: Omega;909181If I were doing magic in Cyberpunk, and I did with one playtest supplement for my own, Id make it very limited in some manner.

My go-to example is Silent Möbius, a manga which came out in 89 and was adapted into an OVA in 91.

If CP2020 really does use the same system overall as Mekton then you could plug in its build system for spells from a limited pool. Or even have the PCs all "build" their own gear, cyberware, or magic from the same point limits and roll from there.

There was also the Ianus games book Night's Edge, which covered all kinds of supernatural stuff.  I liked it for what it was worth, although I don't think I ever actually used any of it in more than a one-shot.