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Oh I thought of a third one, strange days.
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Oct 18, 2022 01:33
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Bubblegum Crisis
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Oct 18, 2022 01:39
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Kwyndig posted:Oh I thought of a third one, strange days. This is a fantastic movie, and a definite must watch for anyone who wants to play up the BD angle in their game (because the BDs are lifted from this movie). Wrr posted:One of my players is hesitant to play Cyberpunk as they're not that familiar with the setting. Not the specific cyberpunk red setting, but cyberpunk in general. What are some good bits of media to help them get a feel for things? They've seen Blade Runner. I'm hoping to watch Edge Runners with them soon. All the movie suggestions have been great ones. They can also read Neuromancer if they want to get to the heart of things.
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Oct 18, 2022 02:11
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If they prefer their cyberpunk to be a little goofy they can read Snow Crash although it's pretty much a parody of cyberpunk.
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Oct 18, 2022 11:24
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There was a fantastic show a few years back called Incorporated that was a hell of a modern take on classic Cyberpunk. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series)
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Oct 18, 2022 14:21
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PeterWeller posted:All the movie suggestions have been great ones. They can also read Neuromancer if they want to get to the heart of things. I'd skip Neuromancer and go for the lesser known Hardwired which was a direct influence on Pondsmith.
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Oct 18, 2022 15:08
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There was an actual Hardwired sourcebook for Cyberpunk, if my memory serves
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Oct 18, 2022 17:54
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:There was an actual Hardwired sourcebook for Cyberpunk, if my memory serves Correct. The Hardwired author co-authored the sourcebook too
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Oct 18, 2022 18:02
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Dawgstar posted:I'd skip Neuromancer and go for the lesser known Hardwired which was a direct influence on Pondsmith. Fair point, but I'd still read Neuromancer because it's a much better novel than Hardwired.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:36
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SniperWoreConverse posted:Which ones? If I would pick on three: class system, combat actions, and facedowns. Some of the roles and role abilities are really hard to plug into certain types of campaigns, but mechanically they have very little differentiating them outside of theme. So in my mind, I don't think this game needed a class system at all. For combat actions or facedowns, the general theme is that there's enough depth to get going, but not enough depth to frame more interesting interactions in the world without winging it. Look, I know that you can just wing it, but I feel that a rules framework for doing more interesting things (trying to seduce somebody, using your tactics skill to get perks before combat, etc) would have been nice from the start, especially if it connected to the class system in any meaningful way. I do like that its light and the setting is fantastic, but I wanted more from the ruleset in some areas. I made a pretty sweeping change from the start- armor and damage. Each DV subtracts from each dice rolled, damage is also increased for weapons to D10. This has been a pretty good change. BULBASAUR fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Oct 19, 2022 |
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Oct 18, 2022 20:21
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PeterWeller posted:Fair point, but I'd still read Neuromancer because it's a much better novel than Hardwired. Hardwired has its charm and honestly if you read both you can see a lot of its influence on Cyberpunk. And it's always fun to point out when you get somebody saying "Cyberpunk isn't like Gibson's stuff at all" the reason is Mike hadn't read them when he wrote the game. Maybe not even until after 2020, I'm not sure. Cyberpunk feels like it primarily runs off that book, Blade Runner and whatever 80's anime Mike had the hook up for which is at least Bubblegum Crisis because I'm pretty sure that's where we get cyberpsychosis even if Boomers weren't cyborgs.
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Oct 18, 2022 21:11
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Dawgstar posted:Cyberpunk feels like it primarily runs off that book, Blade Runner and whatever 80's anime Mike had the hook up for which is at least Bubblegum Crisis because I'm pretty sure that's where we get cyberpsychosis even if Boomers weren't cyborgs. Mike must've had one hell of an anime club in college, because Bubblegum Crisis started coming out in 87 in Japan and Adam Smasher's original appearance screams it. I don't remember any humanoid robot that looked quite like a Boomer before BGC, but that's getting back into the dark ages I can't remember too good.
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Oct 18, 2022 23:28
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BULBASAUR posted:If I would pick on three: class system, combat actions, and facedowns. Some of the roles and role abilities are really hard to plug into certain types of campaigns, but mechanically they have very little differentiating them outside of theme. So in my mind, I don't think this game needed a class system at all. idk cause i haven't really run it well or much at all but dunno if i agree The class system critique is wild to me -- each class has something that's literally impossible to obtain without being that class. You literally cannot interact with architectures without being a netrunner, operate medical tech without being a medtech, regular techs can invent which is potentially bonkers, fixers can find stuff and run night markets. Nomad has access to vehicles at a pretty impossible to obtain level, and solo is a super hardcore combat specialist. Worst case read to me is that there is a sort of overlap matrix between lawman/exec/rocker/media which you sort of have minions in a certain way, and/or get info in certain ways. Each one seems pretty distinct and useful to me, especially if you know what style of campaign you're getting into and aren't just open palm slamming down a basic character into a specific bespoke campaign. There's also some DLC they put out that shows how you can reskin roles to be other stuff, like private investigator or whatever, if that helps any. basically i can't really argue with winging it aspect. They did some q&a where people were asking what kinds of assist actions were possible and it seemed pretty broad what was intended to be allowed outside of combat. Like using security tech to guess where such and such conduit ran to and where an access point might be, etc. I would probably eyeball an npc's sheet and general attitude to the pcs and either come up with a DV they could try and tackle via some combo of social skills or ofc rockerboys can likely beat the roll to seduce someone with their ability right out the gate, especially with luck. -- Somebody run this goddamn thing so i can get a better grip on it
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Oct 19, 2022 03:27
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Gearhead posted:Mike must've had one hell of an anime club in college, because Bubblegum Crisis started coming out in 87 in Japan and Adam Smasher's original appearance screams it. I don't remember any humanoid robot that looked quite like a Boomer before BGC, but that's getting back into the dark ages I can't remember too good. I believe Mike was on the west coast, at least at the time, which probably helped although Adam Warren who did the US Dirty Pair comics was getting that kinda stuff in the mid-80's while going to school at Joe Kubert's art academy which is in New Jersey somewhere so some people had a really good pipeline.
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Oct 19, 2022 14:16
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Dawgstar posted:Hardwired has its charm and honestly if you read both you can see a lot of its influence on Cyberpunk. And it's always fun to point out when you get somebody saying "Cyberpunk isn't like Gibson's stuff at all" the reason is Mike hadn't read them when he wrote the game. Maybe not even until after 2020, I'm not sure. Hardwired is a fun, schlocky book, and yeah, it's influences on CP are obvious and notable, especially in terms of the setting's rule by corporations and the ESA. But I think you can argue that a lot of those influences are basically Gibson's influence by way of Hardwired. Super wealthy space capitalists describes T-A from Neuromancer. The Panzers in Hardwired are basically the same as the hover tank that Turner pilots in Count Zero. Sarah is clearly influenced by Molly Millions.
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Oct 19, 2022 16:24
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SniperWoreConverse posted:idk cause i haven't really run it well or much at all but dunno if i agree Besides some roles like the solo or the netrunner a lot of role abilities aren't immediately tangible. Most of them are pretty abstract, and some like Teamwork put a burden on fitting into certain types of campaigns (both to the PC and Game Tyrant). Besides your one role ability what's really different about the roles? That's why I think Red would have benefited from having no roles at all, just pick or buy some abilities to define your character. Yakuza boss getting backup shouldn't be locked behind a lawman archetype that isn't mechanically any different from a fixer besides one role ability.
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Oct 19, 2022 22:17
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All the other skills are in support of the role ability though, your character is basically built around what role you want. The role ability is the core, but the core of the core is your character's initial motivations & concept & goal, then you pick the role ability that supports that, and the skills that support that If I wanted to play a laid off petrochem oil rig guy, you'd better bet I'd pick a tech. Hibbert West, Reanimator could only be a medtech. They would have radically different skill picks and ware compared to someone who wants to design a new kind of aeronautic system or a paramedic. The abilities are pretty different & strong & if you're not building to leverage that in some way you're kinda blowing it
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Oct 20, 2022 01:02
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PeterWeller posted:Hardwired is a fun, schlocky book, and yeah, it's influences on CP are obvious and notable, especially in terms of the setting's rule by corporations and the ESA. Shadowrun's lifting of the whole Panzer thing was shameless even for them.
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Oct 20, 2022 01:38
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Vulpes Vulpes posted:Shadowrun's lifting of the whole Panzer thing was shameless even for them. Definitely, but let's be fair. Just about every RPG is built on shamelessly lifting ideas from popular fiction.
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Oct 20, 2022 15:30
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BULBASAUR posted:Besides some roles like the solo or the netrunner a lot of role abilities aren't immediately tangible. Most of them are pretty abstract, and some like Teamwork put a burden on fitting into certain types of campaigns (both to the PC and Game Tyrant). Besides your one role ability what's really different about the roles? That's why I think Red would have benefited from having no roles at all, just pick or buy some abilities to define your character. Yakuza boss getting backup shouldn't be locked behind a lawman archetype that isn't mechanically any different from a fixer besides one role ability. The fact that you can infinitely multiclass with no drawbacks makes it so that you effectively can pick or buy abilities that define your character. If someone wants to become a yakuza boss and she starts as a solo, she's either going to need to invest in lawman ranks, or she's gonna need to be a Kiryu type who handles her own problems. In the latter case, she could still have underlings, they just wouldn't be mechanically summonable in the same way. As for needing "certain types of campaigns", this is not D&D where your GM is leading you by the nose through a scripted adventure module. The intention is that the mechanics present you with an immediate problem: rent is coming due and you cannot afford food or drugs. You need money, so you either work your weekly gig (which can generate character-appropriate plot seeds) or you reach out to your contacts for the same. The GM takes those plot seeds and starts to lay down plot threads which the party pursues using the methods available to them, meaning the player characters, their personalities, and their abilities define the adventure and are naturally able to play into it. If your party is a medtech, a rockerboy, and a solo, the adventures are going to be related to playing shows, fighting the power (or climbing the corporate ladder) through art, and maybe doing some contract work on the side. There aren't going to be plots which revolve around vehicle combat or hacking unless the rockerboy's groupies (or, at a stretch, the group's contacts or medtech's coworkers) can provide those things. The game, more than almost any other I've played, is player-directed. The GM's job is just to hold the world up around them and give the NPC factions adequate reactions to what the players want to do. worm girl fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Oct 20, 2022 |
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Oct 20, 2022 15:48
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worm girl posted:The fact that you can infinitely multiclass with no drawbacks makes it so that you effectively can pick or buy abilities that define your character. If someone wants to become a yakuza boss and she starts as a solo, she's either going to need to invest in lawman ranks, or she's gonna need to be a Kiryu type who handles her own problems. In the latter case, she could still have underlings, they just wouldn't be mechanically summonable in the same way. Thank you for describing it this way! My friends and I have been playing Cyberpunk on and off since the mid-90's, and rarely have we had a successful campaign, and this really nails what we've been doing wrong.
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Oct 21, 2022 13:57
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Yeah Cyberpunk is structured so that your character grows and develops as an individual rather than a class progression where all 15th level Fighters are basically the same
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Oct 21, 2022 13:59
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If it helps, don't think of them as 'classes' so much as 'skill trees.'
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Oct 21, 2022 14:27
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Seth Skorkowsky finally did his Cyberpunk Red review.
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Oct 21, 2022 16:28
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worm girl posted:The fact that you can infinitely multiclass with no drawbacks makes it so that you effectively can pick or buy abilities that define your character. If someone wants to become a yakuza boss and she starts as a solo, she's either going to need to invest in lawman ranks, or she's gonna need to be a Kiryu type who handles her own problems. In the latter case, she could still have underlings, they just wouldn't be mechanically summonable in the same way Bust Rodd posted:Yeah Cyberpunk is structured so that your character grows and develops as an individual rather than a class progression where all 15th level Fighters are basically the same TheCenturion posted:If it helps, don't think of them as 'classes' so much as 'skill trees.' For sure. My argument is, considering all those things, why lock things behind a class system. Its a preference thing, but to me the game would benefit from dropping it
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Oct 21, 2022 23:16
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Cyberpunk can have little a class, as a treat.
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Oct 21, 2022 23:56
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BULBASAUR posted:For sure. My argument is, considering all those things, why lock things behind a class system. I wouldn't say they're locked behind anything. You can buy any of them at any time if you have the XP for it. I'm guessing the reason they organized it that way is so that you always start with one and so you could have class-appropriate tables to roll on for your background and your day job and stuff.
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Oct 22, 2022 00:11
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Dawgstar posted:I believe Mike was on the west coast, at least at the time, which probably helped although Adam Warren who did the US Dirty Pair comics was getting that kinda stuff in the mid-80's while going to school at Joe Kubert's art academy which is in New Jersey somewhere so some people had a really good pipeline.
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Oct 22, 2022 02:59
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Weird stuff finds a way to its audiences. I remember watching sins of Iron Chef in the late 90s via VHS tapes my housemate ordered from Seoul or some place. I was a Canadian watching them in California while visiting, and I took copies of some back with me to Toronto. If my neighbour’s kid had written a “cooking race with mood lighting” comic in response, nobody would have been able to figure out how the kid had encountered the idea.
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Oct 24, 2022 05:10
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I literally haven't played 2020 since the 90's and my favorite type of character was a Netrunner. Since I discovered the Neo Tribes book in the last ten years, I fallen in love with the Nomad. How do people incorporate Nomads into an ongoing Night City (or other city) campaign? Doesn't the nomad have to get back to their family? A Nomad can't just run in around in various cities using their family's vehicles and never have a reason for borrowing them. When do they go back their family? Just in their off time? "Hey, I love all of you, but now that you've healed all my gunshot wounds, I'm going to take this here armored van. I'll bring it back, I promise!" Also, I really wish they'd release a Nomad sourcebook for Red because the Neo Tribes book is really showing its 90's age.
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Oct 24, 2022 07:03
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Mushika posted:I literally haven't played 2020 since the 90's and my favorite type of character was a Netrunner. Since I discovered the Neo Tribes book in the last ten years, I fallen in love with the Nomad. How do people incorporate Nomads into an ongoing Night City (or other city) campaign? Doesn't the nomad have to get back to their family? A Nomad can't just run in around in various cities using their family's vehicles and never have a reason for borrowing them. When do they go back their family? Just in their off time? "Hey, I love all of you, but now that you've healed all my gunshot wounds, I'm going to take this here armored van. I'll bring it back, I promise!" Theres a sidebar in the book directly about that. They say that an easy way to keep a nomad in a city game is to tie them to one of the other characters, either make it about family or make one of the other characters part of a deal with the nomad tribe and have the nomad PC be there for security or something.
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Oct 24, 2022 07:54
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Thanks for the heads up, Seth is a Real Dude and given his deep Cyberpunk love I really like hearing his opinion. His review makes me think Red is itching for a "Equipment and Combat" optional rules supplement to add some of the crunch he's missing, which seems pretty reasonable to me. A lot of his concerns kind of echo ones he has with the Year Zero games, as in they decide to swerve away from crunchiness in bizarre and unsatisfying ways. ie: Year Zero's Zone system and CPR's combat modifiers. If and when I finally get to run some Red I am heavily tempted to house rule a bit of the crunch back in. Cover, going prone and shooting-while-moving difficulty modifiers aren't exactly hard to inject, though I suppose once you start down that road you enter "Why not just play CP2020 and use the Red netrunning rules" territory which is harder to reply to.
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Oct 24, 2022 12:49
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Wrr posted:Theres a sidebar in the book directly about that. They say that an easy way to keep a nomad in a city game is to tie them to one of the other characters, either make it about family or make one of the other characters part of a deal with the nomad tribe and have the nomad PC be there for security or something. Yeah, it doesn't have to get difficult. Your Nomad can just be one who arranges business in the city while the rest of the clan is doing said business outside the city. Really easy if you also have a Fixer in your party.
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Oct 24, 2022 16:10
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Sinatrapod posted:If and when I finally get to run some Red I am heavily tempted to house rule a bit of the crunch back in. Cover, going prone and shooting-while-moving difficulty modifiers aren't exactly hard to inject, though I suppose once you start down that road you enter "Why not just play CP2020 and use the Red netrunning rules" territory which is harder to reply to. I've run a few sessions of Red and miss some of what you laid out. Cover in Red is more about holding actions if you're high on the initiative list. You pretty much go into cover until "someone pops up to shoot, then I shoot them." Or you can just shoot at the cover. I still don't love that and think they threw the baby out with the bathwater when they were getting rid of the really '90s poo poo like hit locations and body-type modifier, etc. They really cut out a lot of the simulationist aspects of the game to the point that it lost some of the original game's flavor. Bunching guns into categories makes sense to streamline things, but I do miss the subtle differences between an Arasaka and Militech for guns that operate in the same category. I ended up naming different qualities of guns in a category based on the manufacturer, but that took a lot of time in the Foundry to get done. That's all to say that adding crunch to Red is probably a lot easier than removing it from 2020.
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Oct 24, 2022 17:05
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Dawgstar posted:Yeah, it doesn't have to get difficult. Your Nomad can just be one who arranges business in the city while the rest of the clan is doing said business outside the city. Really easy if you also have a Fixer in your party. Considering in Red the Nomads are the de facto primary shipping companies, it kind of makes sense for them to have people “stationed” at major transportation centers like Night City, both to let customers have someone there to contact and to keep an eye on local conditions (i.e. let the family know that batch of salvage would sell great here, or there’s somebody raiding convoys in the area so be cautious, etc.). Nomads can’t really completely live off the land, they have to trade with non-mobile types which gives plenty of options for Nomad PCs who have to handle that kind of work. The fact they start at Rank 4 even fits with their selection for the task, they’re experienced enough to be trusted by their leadership but not so high level they’re too important to leave behind somewhere. And of course as the CP2020 books went into detail about, there are plenty of people who are Nomads without being the Nomad character class (not like they don’t have a lot of passenger seats available) since they have plenty of use for people like Netrunners, Solos, Medtechs and the like themselves, so it’s perfectly logical to make a “Nomad” without the Moto skill (or hell, a Nomad campaign probably won’t be unbalanced if you just gave the non-Nomad PCs Moto 1 so they have a vehicle but lack all the cooler options unless they put the points into it). Sinatrapod posted:If and when I finally get to run some Red I am heavily tempted to house rule a bit of the crunch back in. Cover, going prone and shooting-while-moving difficulty modifiers aren't exactly hard to inject, though I suppose once you start down that road you enter "Why not just play CP2020 and use the Red netrunning rules" territory which is harder to reply to. Nah, there’s plenty of improvements over CP2020 that I like Red for (class skill changes in particular, though I’m not sure if Backup is better than Authority even if it’s a lot less vague benefits now), I agree with the folks saying it’s better to add crunch to Red than just drag parts of it to CP2020 rules. Cover does need to be more of a thing, because in real life being behind something solid (or at least having your position obscured) is just too important to fire fights to be waved off. I think there should be some impact to being in a pillbox vs. running across the street, even if I’m not sure what. Other thing I’m still debating is the “Reflex 8 lets you dodge bullets” thing, kinda makes it the god stat for combat characters since it’s crucial to offense and defense to max it. Not sure whether dumping it altogether to replace with things like cover mods and such is best, or if going the other way, for a less lethal Cyberpunk experience, let anybody (or at least “important characters” to save on rolling dice for mooks) roll Evasion for ranged attacks even without Reflex 8. Maybe limit the total number of attacks you can evade for balance? I do kind of like the idea of ranged evasion to encourage not doing the realistic (but boring) option of staying in cover and just suppressing until somebody gets an explosive off, Cyberpunk should encourage some suicidal lunatic tactics given how cinematic the source material can be.
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Oct 26, 2022 18:51
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I actually really like that idea about the Nomads. 'Imagine if FedEx was a biker gang. With tanks.'
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Oct 26, 2022 21:07
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Imagine if the Huns and the east India company had a baby
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Oct 26, 2022 22:37
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Firstscion posted:Imagine if the Huns and the east India company had a baby Cue the Mongoltage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqcVro-3f4I Gearhead fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Oct 26, 2022 |
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Oct 26, 2022 23:19
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MadDogMike posted:Nomads without being the Nomad character class "nomadic" vs Nomad "rocker" vs Rockerboy etc. IIRC at least some of the class names are associated with first character to be the icon of the class. As far as needing extreme reflexes to dodge bullets, I think that should be in, but I don't even know if there's a way to improve it up to 8 after chargen. Snort coke? If you already have 7. But you also use DEX + Evasion +  if you want to dodge, it's just gated behind reflexes, so you kinda have to decide if you want your character to be entirely built around dodging or what. Can you up a stat for the same price as your role ability or something?
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Oct 27, 2022 02:27
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Anybody with a guitar and a love of performing can get up on stage and rock, and even be very good at it, make a full career out of it. I'd put Kerry Eurodyne in this category. But only certain people can get up on stage and convince a crowd, with a song, to storm a corporate enclave. That's the difference between 'a rock star' and 'a Rockerboy.' Similarly, anybody can travel the highways and wastes, you know, be nomadic. But being a Nomad also means you're part of a family, who's part of a clan, and plugged into that culture and web of trust. Any idiot with a few hundred EDs to rub together can buy a gun and a vest and go be a gun for hire, but only a few people have that instinct for combat that makes them a Solo.
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Oct 27, 2022 14:06
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