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DeathSandwich posted:Yeah, they did reword how humanity loss works in this edition vs the older editions. In RED the only things that explicitly cost humanity is when you are getting chrome that goes above and beyond what would be considered standard human potential. A mundane cybernetic arm / eye/ect that just mimics basic meat function and nothing beyond that pretty explicitly doesn't have a humanity cost. The same goes for biosculpting. If you want to upgrade to biosculpted hulk arms that let you rip car doors off their hinges there's a humanity cost associated with that the same as if you got robot arms that do the same thing. That does allow for things that are a lot more progressive in RED compared to 2020 or 2013 - Gender cofirmation in RED has no humanity cost when it did in 2020/2013 for example. I do feel like they went a little screwy with the cost vs. capabilities of cyberware, particularly the base elements. Right now the only benefit for a basic non-medical cyberlimb is slightly higher base damage punching people, and that only if you're relatively weak. And that's the high end; there's literally no benefit to getting cybereyes/cyberaudio or neural implants, you waste a bunch of humanity for absolutely no effect unless you spend additional $$ filling in options. If humanity is supposed to be a cost from stepping away from human-normal, then things that cost humanity should have some sort of base improvement over the organic version to justify it. I can't help but think it's something of a legacy carryover from 2020, where I seem to recall the costs worked out a little better for cyberware, but it gets kind of crazy expensive fast to get any improvement over standard. Where's the temptation to sacrifice humanity for power when it costs too much just to have parity? Hell, there are options where the cyber version can be easily achieved with regular gear; cybereyes barely compete with smart glasses, and the same with a lot of cyberaudio options vs. buying the equivalent device. It's outright worse for Netrunner gear to use cyber implants: 2 cybereyes + 2x virtuality implants = $400 to just spending $100 for goggles, and depending on how you read the cyberdeck implant rules for cyberarms ("A Cyberdeck must be provided by the user at the time of installation") you have to spend an additional $500 (or $1000 if you count the base price of the cyberarm in the extra!) to get something near equivalent to just buying the deck itself. Near as I can tell you'd be out a minimum $2400 to make a Netrunner with cyber versions of their base gear vs. $1600 for non-cyber i.e. you can't afford it as a starting character pretty much, especially since that doesn't include any programs or deck options. One extra cyberdeck option does not balance against that massive cost in humanity and money. Cyberware either needs to be a lot more impactful to justify the cost (things like chyron should be outright built into base cybereyes and the double cost for both eyes thing doesn't need to be, and similar upgrades/automatic options for other base implants) or they should make it a lot cheaper in $$ minimum even if they want to keep the humanity costs where they are. And while we're on the subject of strangely costly cyberware, I must be sure to take this opportunity to make fun of the fact a Mr. Studd does as much of a number on your sanity as replacing an arm or a leg. Sure it's not like I can't see the argument of it having an obvious unnatural change in human capacity; hell, being able to say "Erection lasting more than four hours? Working as intended!" has more reasonable impact than the aforementioned bare bones cyberarm does. But man, I can't help but imagine some PC out there who got one unlucky 12 and managed to drop to cyberpsychosis putting one in. He'd have to be so low already the logic would be something like "I might be a cold hearted violent killer but THIS will make the guys and/or ladies love me!", but still, the hilarity that would ensue. In-world I originally thought it would make the kind of story Max-Tac would laugh about for years to come, but then I considered the likely terrible ideas PCs would put into such an implant, especially with some Tech with high Invention abilities and no sanity of their own ("Dear God, who would make one of those SPRAY ACID?!!!"  ) and concluded it would be more likely a whispered horror story that makes even those Max-Tac nuts get a thousand yard stare.Overall Red is an definite improvement over 2020, but it does need to walk a little further away from its progenitor I think. Also for anyone who's considering taking the rules to the 2077 setting, I have to recommend the World of Cyberpunk 2077 book; in addition to artwork it has a lot of interesting world-building detail on the differences in baseline society from 2020/Red and some of the history between those times and 2077.
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Jan 8, 2021 03:37
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DeathSandwich posted:I need to go back and look but I believe yes, quick character gen rules just give you a one and done list of starting gear and all you need to pick is cosmetics. I do have to praise this version for having pretty good quick gen character rules, seems to do a pretty good job making characters that are reasonably strong at their roles. Even messing with the full “make your own” rules I typically start with the stat/skill arrays and tweak from there, saves a lot of work at ensuring you hit your “core competencies” for your role.
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Jan 9, 2021 18:40
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Weird Uncle Dave posted:I still can't get over how much of this book was just lifted wholesale from Cyberpunk 2020. The artwork and overall quality of the book is a lot higher, but a lot of the book (and let's be honest, a lot of the rules) remind me of being back in high school. In the best possible way. Honestly the logic behind the Net change has some pretty big holes in it; it should be relatively easy to just build a separate network from the old stuff. My only speculation is what they have is the best they can do because too many AI worshippers or cost-cutting idiots keep putting in backdoors to the old one so you need to limit what can be done. As for the RABIDS thing, they were programmed by somebody who watched the original net be put in and did a little modifications of his own (so he had the equivalent of admin access to every copy of Windows to start), they came out at the same time as all the other corporate-released Net horrors so at the start they probably didn't stand out much from the general chaos, and after that... well, von Neumann propagation plus a programmer who probably put up exploits in the network itself for them to use can make something become a big problem, though I suspect they're only the most public face of why the old Net is dangerous (because it's easy to cast blame on the dead nut with few friends) and the all the other mentioned Corporate War era killer AIs and such do quite a good job on their own killing anyone dumb enough to poke their heads in the wrong places anyway.
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Feb 18, 2021 01:25
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Notahippie posted:From a certain POV, Robocop is the story of Clarence Boddicker the fixer and his party working with Dick Jones on urban renewal. I gotta say "bitches leave" does sound like a PC in an edgy game, which if they casually torture an NPC to death in the first couple minutes is the type of game they're certainly playing. Obviously the DM responded to them killing off his cool NPC that way by having him come back as an invincible cyborg to kill them.
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Nov 16, 2021 02:30
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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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