Quote from: Panzerkraken;909151Things 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.

Mild quibble - 9mm do 2d6+1, but .45's and higher (including old-world caliber bullets and the 2020 caseless variety) do 4d6 at minimum. There is a proliferation of going to shotgun rounds in the revised edition too because they made shotgun slugs AP. That said, the best way to take out guy with a shotgun is to out range them etc.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;909151Limp 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.

100% agree here. I made some changes like this too as I recall. Is it 12 point? I thought it was 8. Oh well. it's been a while.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;909151Critical 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.

Another really good point. 10% Feast/Famine bit can be rough.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;909151Watch 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.

Yeah, this needs to be monitored. There's a sweet spot that you as a GM have to come to grips with after some play. The layering rules can get a bit thick. I believe at 25+ you're really at the top end of what the rule will allow. And 25 is a LOT.

Adding magic to the game. Well it would depend on what you want Magic to do. The Mekton game had Psionics that could easily be adapted "as magic".

As mentioned upthread Cybergenration did a bunch of crazy shit in there too. You could create some simple system for effects based formulas and simple assign Magic as a Class Ability (like any other role) and just assign the difficulty as normal.

In keeping with the SR notion of magic, I'd tie the Magic skill to Empathy that way you'd have a natural separation of Cyber and Magic.

Quote from: daniel_ream;909290No, it really won't.  Probably because I play RPGs for different reasons than you.  And that's okay.



All the time?  There's a reason so many people here and elsewhere advocate playing only with friends you know well.  And even then, Tigger Syndrome is a serious problem at many tables.

I've found that younger players tend to be pretty easy to work with as a GM. We've grown up with video games as our "competitive" outlet, with tabletop games explicitly there to participate in a multi-person fiction setting. In addition, many of us turn to tabletop RPGs to get story experiences we may feel lacking in computer games, so Timmy isn't just messing with the GM, he's messing with all of the other player's reason for sitting down for hours at a time.

Quote from: daniel_ream;909290No, it really won't.  Probably because I play RPGs for different reasons than you.  And that's okay.
[...]
All the time?  There's a reason so many people here and elsewhere advocate playing only with friends you know well.  And even then, Tigger Syndrome is a serious problem at many tables.

I had to look up Tigger Syndrome (cliff notes: i like everything! ... except whatever you offer next).

I totally get where you're coming from. Motley crews of special snowflakes tumbling down the pass on their way to respectable street drove me up a wall before. Then I learned it's just easier clearly stating what I want and expect, and "releasing" players from my table if they just couldn't hack it. Sometimes I want a mad tumble of parrots through the casbah — but a lot of times I don't. And I reserve the right to have my fun, too.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909338Then I learned it's just easier clearly stating what I want and expect, and "releasing" players from my table if they just couldn't hack it.

I am old and jaded, but asking players what they want to play never works, in my experience.  Just running what you like, being clear about what that means, and politely turning away people who don't or won't get it is the only way to avoid GM burnout.

Quote from: daniel_ream;909350I am old and jaded, but asking players what they want to play never works, in my experience.  Just running what you like, being clear about what that means, and politely turning away people who don't or won't get it is the only way to avoid GM burnout.

Which is kind of where I am with genre conventions.  If I tell 5 players this is a CyberPunk game, I've got 10+ different possibilities of the definition of Cyberpunk rolling around in their heads.  Instead I tell them what the setting is like, because in the end, I don't really care about genre, I care about authenticity.  My players don't tell stories through their characters, they experience a fictional world through their characters.  Does this world ring true to itself, as opposed to Gibson, Sterling or whoever?  Because if it does, then it's a win, regardless of whether or not looking back you could see the campaign as coming straight out of a Mirrorshades collection.

Now that being said, I do prime the pump by using terms like Cyberpunk, Sword and Sorcery, etc., but I always follow them up with what I mean by the term, because it may not be what they mean.

“As a literary form, what happened was what happens to every successful new thing in any branch of pop culture. Cyberpunk fiction went from being something unexpected, fresh, and original, to being a trendy fashion statement; to being a repeatable commercial formula; to being a hoary trope, complete with a set of stylistic markers and time-honored forms to which obeisance must be paid if one is to write True Cyberpunk….”
– Bruce Bethke (writer of the story Cyberpunk)

Like the sig says:

"Don't let yourself get too worried about all this talk about roleplaying [...] the ultimate object of all this is for everyone to have fun, not to recreate some form of high dramatic art." - Dungeoneer

I haven't experienced much problem with players not being on the same page as my campaign, but that's probably a combo of luck, my being specific about my expectations for the campaign and my willingness to be flexible to add to the fun.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909338And I reserve the right to have my fun, too.

Hell yeah!!

Even among friends, I've found that people's genre expectations can be a big hang up when it comes time to game - though a lot of the time, the actual game itself can be at fault if it's a grab bag and mismash of various genres. Take Exalted - in my group we had people like me who wanted dark, gritty fantasy with supernatural powers. Then we had the player who wanted wuxai/anime stuff, complete with SD freak out moments. Another player who wanted Game of Thrones. Another who wanted Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was a hot fucking mess.

At least both CP 2020 and SR both present their genre with a little more focus, even if Cyberpunk itself is more of a lens than a genre.

Scroungin the used stacks for copies on the cheap. Shh, don't tell anyone lest the collectors start swooping in. How far can I get away with just the core book?

CP2020 you can get quite far with ust the core book. It is all we used in college, back when it first came out. The sourcebooks vary widely in usefulness and quality.

Shadowrun I have no idea these days. I haven't played since first edition.

Quote from: DavetheLost;909675CP2020 you can get quite far with ust the core book. It is all we used in college, back when it first came out. The sourcebooks vary widely in usefulness and quality.

I've come to the same conclusion.  I never ran any true long term campaigns, but the most successful ones typically used only the corebook and maybe some stuff from Night City.  CP2020 and Rifts were unique in my purge from a couple of years ago as being games I kept but disposed of many of their supplements.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909671Scroungin the used stacks for copies on the cheap. Shh, don't tell anyone lest the collectors start swooping in. How far can I get away with just the core book?

The local group ran a long CP2020 campaign before I arrived. All with just the core book.
Dont know about later editions but SR is fully playable with just the core book.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;908893It's mostly because of Timmies and role protections. There's always going to be that guy (who probably posts to the gaming den) who's going to break the system and turn the entire campaign into a gigantic wank fest over his character. Sociopathy and social coldness isn't a negative to someone who wants to play a murderhobo. Personally, I kind of like the tech vs. magic thing, as you have the spirit world rebelling against man's tools and vice versa. One of the reasons why I like Arcana so much, despite the gameplay being atrocious. One of my fixes tends to be to divide up the "face" of the party role between everyone. Let them have distinct roles in combat and preparing for missions, but roleplaying wise I tend to play it off that every segment of society has personality types that favors one guy or another. Badass biker bar is going to react better to roided up cyborg, for example. That way people are distinct in the crunch, but have equal chances to work with the fluff. Shadowrun Returns did it very well with balancing intelligence, charisma and strength as equally viable conversation approaches.

I think Dragonfall was the first solid game in that series that pulled that off but I was even more impressed with Hong Kong which used almost every skill in dialog at least a few times. And that is exactly how skills should be used in CRPGs (and tabletop). I've completed all games playing a hybrid Shaman/Decker with maxed-out Charisma and Intelligence and it is highly satisfying that even if your character can't trash mobs, they can certainly mop up convos that net you way better rewards long-term. Only sticking point was the whole trait limit thing with the Troll and Orc genotypes (but that's that archaic "black peolple savage orcs" shit from the tabletop cracking through its ugly head)

Quote from: IskandarKebab;908902Right, I dun goofed, Arcanum. I've checked out the mods, but honestly its not UI or Keybinds, its the fact that the fundamental gameplay sucks and a wonderful game world was ruined by tons of trashmobs and crappy combat. That and the dialogue trees are the most unforgiving I have ever seen. Usually games give you a heads up on "this is the dialogue your buffed speech skill unlocked", but Arcanum gave no warning as to what was the better option and rarely gave you side paths to achieving the same result. Solving the orc labor dispute is damn near impossible without having done it before or using an internet guide.

As for rules, I tend to run long campaigns, so I have more time to build them around the characters. I also go down the classic delta green route and give people large packages of knowledge at the start, as often knowledge tends to be gimped character build wise. Plus, I almost exclusively use Savage Worlds, where its a lot harder to build broken characters. My main issue is that I've lived in a lot of areas where RPG's aren't as well established, and my personal tastes go into Swine territory (yes, I'm a storygamer). As such, I have to find ways to integrate the pathfinder or DnD crowd, who tend to want to powergame.

I played a Half-Ogre who had maxed-out Charisma and Speech (you can probably tell what kind of characters I like playing...) I got the orcs unionized with the Half-Orc guy safe and sound and in power and I also got Caladon (?) into the UK with roughly equals powers as Tarant (?). Most everything else about that game was shit but the speech checks were awesome.

The ending was really shit. Its way too overhyped for what it is.

Quote from: IskandarKebab;908918While I do enjoy roleplaying, the problem with CRPGs vs face to face is that they tend to be binary. Let's say there are three different options for that labor strike, all of which are supportive or offer alternative solutions. In a CRPG, most likely only one of them is going to be the one that actually ends it the way I want it to end. All of them also seem equally appealing from a roleplaying point of view, as I am a labor supporter in favor of orc rights. As such, I don't know which one of these flavors is going to accomplish what I want. This is why that signaling is so important. It tells the players "amongst the options you like and fit your character, this is the one that uses your character to the fullest and accomplishes your end goal." If I were face to face with a gm, I could creatively persuade him. With a computer, you're basically playing a character design puzzle. This is why branching solutions are so important, as they allow you to "fail" the character design puzzle and still roleplay your ideal end state. Assembling evidence, hidden away in a defended lair, which convinces the orc labor leader to stand down, allows a fighter character to still support orc labor rights and push the world where you want it to go, but without the arbitrary charisma or speech skill cap.

For me, I tend to stick to savage worlds because RPG systems can be very complex and tough to master. Until you master them, especially as a GM, roleplaying is extremely difficult and gameplay flow can be broken up. Plus, RPGs are quite setting dependent, so in order to play a character who grew up in the world you tend to need to do a substantial amount of reading to be able to understand what your character has experienced.



Geological surveys of mineral fields are incredibly expensive and could potentially be worth billions of dollars. Back during the early Kabila years in the DRC (early 2000's) he was buying the support of major traders and mercenaries with geological data alone. Finding out where your competitors found a new vein of Cobalt could be worth millions to the right people, and well worth sending in a team to break and enter. Or, better yet, finding out who's taking bribes in the region those fields are, so you can then flip them, seize the land, and start mining ASAP.

As for Bio-Tech, I tend to avoid playing the companies as straight up evil. Say you have a company cutting corners with HIV treatment tests in Niger that go wrong. The company may have been trying to make a few extra bucks, but the people who run it also probably actually wanted to help the fight against HIV. There are few people who consciously act evilly, for the most part the value system they exist in provides a framework for how they think, the results of which can lead to evil. Playing with those value systems is, in my view, what makes Cyberpunk such a fun genre when done well. When done poorly (Shadowrun), it just becomes a wankfest about how much capitalism sucks.

I'll definitely do a write up of my Africa-Punk setting. Living in Rwanda for half a year gave me a ton of ideas for modern RPGs

I don't really find it that hard to imagine what its like for a character to live in a given world. One of the most -- for me, at least -- evocative pieces of RPG artwork was in one of the WHRPG gamebooks. It depitcted a vicious, brutal firefight between gang members in a place where it looked violence was one of few ways of life. I imagine the screaming, gunfire, swearing, trashcan fires, motorcycle speeding, airplane low overhead, boots on rivetmetal galleys, all these sounds and I'm there.

One of the worst about Shadowrun (and most fiction in general that mentions Africa of Africanized regions) is the only thing of note is that Nigeria is a "ghoul kingdom". We have all this info on Asia or Europe or North America but none on the place most likely to be the most relevant in the 2070s.

Quote from: Opaopajr;909671Scroungin the used stacks for copies on the cheap. Shh, don't tell anyone lest the collectors start swooping in. How far can I get away with just the core book?

Very far. And actually, leaving the Chrome Books out of it will do a lot for the scope of your game. One sourcebook referenced right in the core book is Solo of Fortune, where a cyberware boost upgrade is contained (but must be on the net somewhere, or you could just get a summary of the cyberware in the book).