# Cyberpunk Red: One Year Later



## lyle.spade (Nov 27, 2021)

I am torn over Red. I played CP2020 a ton way back when, and loved the system, setting, and tone of the books. Only Vampire: the Masquerade matched the degree to which CP's authors presented their world through the tone and wording of their supplements and rulebooks. I remember the combat system working well, and even quickly, when everyone knew the rules and their characters. I also remember Netrunning never being part of the game at the table, and our group never having Netrunners as PCs, for the reasons you cited.

Red does offer some improvements over the old system, particularly in the area of character special abilities, and right after that the Netrunning system, which is nicely tied as a set of mechanics to the 'new normal' of computer networks in the era of Red. These are clear improvements over CP2020.

And yet...Red feels flat. I've run it several times and the system just feels stale, stuck in time, ignorant of 20+ years of game design evolution. That, and the smart-mouth tone that was throughout the 2020 has been replaced by a somewhat self-conscious, muted cynicism that lacks the 'twinkle in the eye' vibe of the old stuff. Sure, society was a mess and the world was falling apart...but you look good and the kid behind the counter at the 7-11 is almost out of ammo, so you might live through the night. There was a grimness to it all, but that sat behind a youthful excitement about living life to the fullest. At least that's how I remember it.

Red, on the other hand, is just grim, coupled with a vanilla system that does what it _must_, but provides nothing to help invoke or support the supposed feel of the world. It might as well be Savage Worlds - just a task resolution mechanic.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 27, 2021)

lyle.spade said:


> And yet...Red feels flat. I've run it several times and the system just feels stale, stuck in time, ignorant of 20+ years of game design evolution. That, and the smart-mouth tone that was throughout the 2020 has been replaced by a somewhat self-conscious, muted cynicism that lacks the 'twinkle in the eye' vibe of the old stuff. Sure, society was a mess and the world was falling apart...but you look good and the kid behind the counter at the 7-11 is almost out of ammo, so you might live through the night. There was a grimness to it all, but that sat behind a youthful excitement about living life to the fullest. At least that's how I remember it.
> 
> Red, on the other hand, is just grim, coupled with a vanilla system that does what it _must_, but provides nothing to help invoke or support the supposed feel of the world. It might as well be Savage Worlds - just a task resolution mechanic.




Is there another system/game that you think handles the same genre better? I'm not defending Cyberpunk Red--my read of it lines up exactly with what you're describing--but I'm also wondering if the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic isn't as timeless and robust as some think it is. Is there a game that's pushed those well-worn tropes in a new direction, in terms of setting and mechanics?


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## Bayushi_seikuro (Nov 27, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> Is there another system/game that you think handles the same genre better? I'm not defending Cyberpunk Red--my read of it lines up exactly with what you're describing--but I'm also wondering if the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic isn't as timeless and robust as some think it is. Is there a game that's pushed those well-worn tropes in a new direction, in terms of setting and mechanics?



I wonder if some of the setting is an issue nowadays.  When I was playing Shadowrun when it first came out, all the technology felt like magic, felt farther off than it ended up being.  Currently, we're in an era where your smartphones can do so much, we're not quite at cloning but we've got to be pretty close to where DocWagon was in SR with vat-grown replacement organs.  Maybe the fluff is harder for people because it doesn't feel as scifi and otherworldly? I'm rambling.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 27, 2021)

Bayushi_seikuro said:


> I wonder if some of the setting is an issue nowadays.  When I was playing Shadowrun when it first came out, all the technology felt like magic, felt farther off than it ended up being.  Currently, we're in an era where your smartphones can do so much, we're not quite at cloning but we've got to be pretty close to where DocWagon was in SR with vat-grown replacement organs.  Maybe the fluff is harder for people because it doesn't feel as scifi and otherworldly? I'm rambling.



Having written the kinds of articles that gushed over research into stuff like 3D-printed organs and brain-computer interfaces, and now 15 years later none of it is any closer to reality (research is research, applications are another thing entirely), I'm not quite as optimistic about the state of our tech. But I do think there's a musty quality to traditional cyberpunk, especially the way it handles computer networks, combined with a kind of grim sense that as we look down the barrel of environmental collapse--including the rolling, ever-present pandemics still to come--maybe dancing around with cyberclaws and cyberdecks in the dark near future isn't quite as nifty anymore.


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## MGibster (Nov 27, 2021)

I haven't had an opportunity to run Cyberpunk Red yet, but it's on my list.  The PDF was on sale recently for something like $15, so I suggested my players pick it up because I'm interested in running it.  I don't expect any system to be perfect, even my go-to system, Savage Worlds, has flaws I readily admit, and I have some misgivings about Cyberpunk Red. 

Skills - Most of the skills seem okay.  Concentration is an odd skill in that I'm not sure when it'll be used.  It's supposed to be used for recalling facts from memory and keeping your cool in a firefight.  So I know you can use it to resist suppressing fire, but when use would you use it?  In the midst of a firefight, could I have a player make a Concentration check to remember which hallway to go down to complete their mission?  It's just not super clear to me.  I also dislike having both an Autofire skill and a Shoulder Arms skill.  It just seems needless to have players get both skills just so they can fire their rifle on full auto.  

One issue I have with almost every cyberpunk type game I've played is how to make money.  Quite frankly, in most games within the genre, making money was stupid and Cyberpunk Red is no different.  In Red, you sell goods for what they're worth in the book.  A group of edgerunners are going to make a lot more boosting cars for a living than they are running missions for anyone.


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## lyle.spade (Nov 27, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> Is there another system/game that you think handles the same genre better? I'm not defending Cyberpunk Red--my read of it lines up exactly with what you're describing--but I'm also wondering if the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic isn't as timeless and robust as some think it is. Is there a game that's pushed those well-worn tropes in a new direction, in terms of setting and mechanics?



That's a really good point about the genre. Perhaps so much of its allure was because of not only what is was/is, but also of when it came out, and what was going on then (late 80s to mid-90s). The mood of the times + technological possibilities as dreamed of at that time + the cheekiness of CP2020 and the gonzo side of Shadowrun made it work. But not we're supposed to play in Red where smartphones aren't a thing...sort of...and the net as we know it is gone, to say nothing of the net that was in CP2020...yeah, I wonder if those interpretations of the genre are just stuck in time, too rooted in a real era's viewpoint to translate well to 25+ years later.

I'm not a fan of transhuman fiction and games, but I think that might be the most logical successor of the original CP genre. Modiphius' Infinity does a fine job of wedding that type of setting/genre with contemporary mechanics (heavy on narrative control and options by players; flexible task resolution options to reflect different approaches to solving problems, etc. and so on).

I don't know of any others, and although I've neither run nor played Infinity, I own it (got it for sci fi ideas with the 2d20 system) and I'm really familiar with several versions of 2d20, so maybe that one. Maybe.


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## MGibster (Nov 27, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> Is there another system/game that you think handles the same genre better? I'm not defending Cyberpunk Red--my read of it lines up exactly with what you're describing--but I'm also wondering if the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic isn't as timeless and robust as some think it is. Is there a game that's pushed those well-worn tropes in a new direction, in terms of setting and mechanics?



"The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel." -- William Gibson _Neuromancer_

From the movie _Poltergeist_ (1982), we see what a dead television channel looked like.  For someone born in 2002, a dead television channel probably just looks like a blue screen.  So a line that readers would have interpreted to show a bleak sky would instead show a nice lovely blue sky for younger people.  (Though I know younger people are intelligent enough to interpret the opening line correctly just from context.)  This is low hanging fruit, of course technology has changed in the nearly 40 years that's passed since _Neuromancer _was published.  





One area that's changed is the idea of gaining cyberware someone lowering one's "Humanity" is distasteful for many people.  In Red, it's only cyberware that enhances human performance that lowers Humanity and not a simple limb replacement to restore functionality.  But it's a change in attitudes that the authors felt needed to be addressed.  

But in other ways, Cyberpunk still seems relevant.  Environmental disaster looms ever closer, the middle class is shrinking, the gulf between the haves and have nots is increasing, and even the basic infrastructure is falling apart or long past its expected life.


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## Tun Kai Poh (Nov 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> and even the basic infrastructure is falling apart or long past its expected life.



That's one aspect we should see more of in cyberpunk media - bridges, highways and left-behind towns where everything still looks like it did in the 1970s, except more run-down rather than upgraded for the future. There are places like that in the U.S. but I'm also thinking of the small villages in ageing countries like Japan where they have just become nearly abandoned... these are interesting places for outlaws in cyberpunk to hide out and lie low...


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## pming (Nov 28, 2021)

Hiya!

Admittedly I have no real knowledge of CP Red other than it exists. I bought Cyberpunk 2013 when it came out in '88. Like, the DAY it came out; friends and I had driven down to Los Angeles for fun a year before graduation. We hit up a "hobby shop" and the guy told us of the cool new game that he JUST put on the shelf that morning; nice, flat-black box of Cyberpunk 2013.

Anyway, we played it a handful of times. Loved it, but man was it deadly! Not the type of RPG we were used to other than, perhaps, Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (1e, obviously; which we bought a year before when it made it up to our neck of the woods here in Whitehorse, Yukon).

I am currently using CP2013/20 with a handful of supplements to craft a future campaign...set in the year 2165'ish...using DOOM Eternal as the setting.  I've always wanted to run a "DOOM RPG", but never found the right fit. Even one or two fan-made DOOM RPG's...didn't quite 'do it' for me. I tried to use other systems over the years, but nothing, as I said, 'fit'. Then, for some reason, I realized I was looking at the system RIGHT in the face! Cyberpunk! How I didn't see it I'll never know. I think it's because of the "aesthetics" of the DOOM games...always made me thing "dark, grim, gritty, rough". It wasn't until DOOM Eternal was released and I saw it's visuals (lots of sleek tech, stores with neon signs, corporations omnipresent marks, etc) that it just slapped me in the face.

So now, bit by bit, I have crafted a "believable" continuation of the "Cyberpunk setting" into the DOOM Eternal setting. I've got enough down on the fluff that I now get to work on the mechanics of it all. Hopefully it won't be too difficult!

Does anyone with experience with Cyberpunk Red and DOOM Eternal (and DOOM franchise in general) think CP Red might be a better fit? CP2020 has a couple books, a tech one, mech one and space one, that I was hoping to use as a base and then just advance it 150 years or so. 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 28, 2021)

lyle.spade said:


> I'm not a fan of transhuman fiction and games, but I think that might be the most logical successor of the original CP genre. Modiphius' Infinity does a fine job of wedding that type of setting/genre with contemporary mechanics (heavy on narrative control and options by players; flexible task resolution options to reflect different approaches to solving problems, etc. and so on).
> 
> I don't know of any others, and although I've neither run nor played Infinity, I own it (got it for sci fi ideas with the 2d20 system) and I'm really familiar with several versions of 2d20, so maybe that one. Maybe.




Eclipse Phase comes to mind.


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## MGibster (Nov 28, 2021)

Tun Kai Poh said:


> That's one aspect we should see more of in cyberpunk media - bridges, highways and left-behind towns where everything still looks like it did in the 1970s, except more run-down rather than upgraded for the future. There are places like that in the U.S. but I'm also thinking of the small villages in ageing countries like Japan where they have just become nearly abandoned... these are interesting places for outlaws in cyberpunk to hide out and lie low...



In Cyberpunk 2020, that's pretty much how they described the areas outside of the big cities these days.  Poorly maintained roads, no law enforcements, and ghost towns.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 28, 2021)

I feel that the entire Cyberpunk genre is a kind of "retro future". This isn't necessarily bad, since Traveller, for example, is basically retro sci-fi.  A really hard sci-fi setting of how our future might realistically be like would probably make for a rather dull game. Mega infrastructure projects, including those in space, might be interesting in a video game, but probably less so in a TTRPG.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 28, 2021)

Traveller isn’t retro-sci-fi. Traveller written in the 1970s is retro-sci-fi, because it is limited by what existed at the time, but that was 40+ years ago. Traveller these days has been modernized accordingly.

Traveller is basically a generic sci-fi game, with a generic default setting that incorporates all sorts of science fiction tales at differing technological levels across a span of a diverse galaxy of planets and cultures.

Cyberpunk is fundamentally an attitude applied to science fiction, and an attempt to show how high tech affects low life, that other science fiction settings sometimes forget.


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## Jd Smith1 (Nov 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> One area that's changed is the idea of gaining cyberware someone lowering one's "Humanity" is distasteful for many people.  In Red, it's only cyberware that enhances human performance that lowers Humanity and not a simple limb replacement to restore functionality.  But it's a change in attitudes that the authors felt needed to be addressed.
> 
> But in other ways, Cyberpunk still seems relevant.  Environmental disaster looms ever closer, the middle class is shrinking, the gulf between the haves and have nots is increasing, and even the basic infrastructure is falling apart or long past its expected life.



I wanted to like Red. And as you say, it does have interesting connections to modern problems. But the area in which it has lagged behind is in (IMO) the core concept that cyberware and its associated surgical support is cheap, problem-free, and permanent. And that the ruthless mega-corps, who build the gear, produce reliable, simple, and backdoor-free gear.

I mean, a ruthless corporation ready to use murder and more for its profit margin would certainly figure ways to force cyber-users to have to regularly buy better year (what are the users going to do? Go back to living with a stump, or non-functional eye), and pack the soft and hard ware to the hilt. Look at what has been done today with phones, game platforms, smart TVs, and online data mining.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 28, 2021)

Although Traveller wasn't retro sci-fi when it was written it certainly is so today, even in its current edition. As for cyberpunk, it is also a child of its time, of course. Some of its conventions are downright quaint, especially given the comprehensive surveillance possibilities that exist today, let alone those that will be available 50 years from now. However, it probably doesn't make for a very fun game if the characters' movements and actions are tracked and monitored 24/7.


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## Jd Smith1 (Nov 28, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> Although Traveller wasn't retro sci-fi when it was written it certainly is so today, even in its current edition. As for cyberpunk, it is also a child of its time, of course. Some of its conventions are downright quaint, especially given the comprehensive surveillance possibilities that exist today, let alone those that will be available 50 years from now. However, it probably doesn't make for a very fun game if the characters' movements and actions are tracked and monitored 24/7.



 True. But it is still jarring, trying to envision a campaign setting which largely ignores the very real privacy issues of today.

I had hoped that Red would work to resolve that contradiction.


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## MGibster (Nov 28, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> I mean, a ruthless corporation ready to use murder and more for its profit margin would certainly figure ways to force cyber-users to have to regularly buy better year (what are the users going to do? Go back to living with a stump, or non-functional eye), and pack the soft and hard ware to the hilt. Look at what has been done today with phones, game platforms, smart TVs, and online data mining.



You've got me thinking of the concept of right of repair.  Many farmers do all they can to save money and will repair their own tractors whenever possible, but John Deere has made it difficult for them to actually repair the tractors they own, forcing them to go to an authorized John Deere dealership/facility.  Back in the 80s and early 90s, I doubt many of us could imagine such a thing as not being able to repair your own car or the endless software updates that come with devices these days.  I suppose it's something they could have addressed in the game, but I don't know how fun that would be.  

One of the Shadowrun editions made it fairly easy for the decker (hacker) to hack your cyberware.  It didn't quite make sense to me though.  If I'm a street samurai, I am not going to keep my wireless network open so some jerk can hack my system and turn off my limbs.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 28, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> Although Traveller wasn't retro sci-fi when it was written it certainly is so today, even in its current edition. As for cyberpunk, it is also a child of its time, of course. Some of its conventions are downright quaint, especially given the comprehensive surveillance possibilities that exist today, let alone those that will be available 50 years from now. However, it probably doesn't make for a very fun game if the characters' movements and actions are tracked and monitored 24/7.



Well, I think you need to be more specific - because the current Traveller game has all the tech that cyberpunk games do and more. _On certain planets, with high tech levels_, the level of surveillance is whatever you want it to be. The game and setting is deliberately diverse.

Next year, Mongoose Traveller is about to release a major campaign centred on A.I., called* Singularity Overdrive* so that is worth noting in itself.

So the tech levels in Traveller do, in fact incorporate the technologies available in Cyberpunk. However, as I said, what Cyberpunk fundamentally incorporates is a different attitude to the science fiction genre.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 28, 2021)

TrippyHippy said:


> Well, I think you need to be more specific - because the current Traveller game has all the tech that cyberpunk games do and more. _On certain planets, with high tech levels_, the level of surveillance is whatever you want it to be. The game and setting is deliberately diverse.
> 
> Next year, Mongoose Traveller is about to release a major campaign centred on A.I., called* Singularity Overdrive* so that is worth noting in itself.
> 
> So the tech levels in Traveller do, in fact incorporate the technologies available in Cyberpunk. However, as I said, what Cyberpunk fundamentally incorporates is a different attitude to the science fiction genre.



I didn't try to compare or combine Traveller and cyberpunk. I merely mentioned Traveller as an example of a sci-fi system that, because of its age, has a retro flavor.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> One of the Shadowrun editions made it fairly easy for the decker (hacker) to hack your cyberware.  It didn't quite make sense to me though.  If I'm a street samurai, I am not going to keep my wireless network open so some jerk can hack my system and turn off my limbs.




The tradeoff for some versions of such things were there were very strong benefits to the wireless connections.  I don't recall if that was true of any of the cyberware.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> One area that's changed is the idea of gaining cyberware someone lowering one's "Humanity" is distasteful for many people.  In Red, it's only cyberware that enhances human performance that lowers Humanity and not a simple limb replacement to restore functionality.  But it's a change in attitudes that the authors felt needed to be addressed.




This is such a great point that I'm embarrassed I've never considered. Essence loss _almost_ makes sense in Shadowrun, as far as its impact on magic goes (and the vaguely spiritual-made-real element of that setting) but now that you've pointed it out I can't imagine Essence or Humanity loss not seeming really distasteful. Even if you limited it to cyberware or bioware that rewires your nervous system or brain chemistry, that's still oddly ableist.


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## CubicsRube (Nov 28, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> I wanted to like Red. And as you say, it does have interesting connections to modern problems. But the area in which it has lagged behind is in (IMO) the core concept that cyberware and its associated surgical support is cheap, problem-free, and permanent. And that the ruthless mega-corps, who build the gear, produce reliable, simple, and backdoor-free gear.
> 
> I mean, a ruthless corporation ready to use murder and more for its profit margin would certainly figure ways to force cyber-users to have to regularly buy better year (what are the users going to do? Go back to living with a stump, or non-functional eye), and pack the soft and hard ware to the hilt. Look at what has been done today with phones, game platforms, smart TVs, and online data mining.



You can get the freemium model arm replacement at a cost of $0. That's right, free! It comes with all the functions you need like pick up cups, shake hands, and wipe your ass. And for a small extra fee you can disable arm-adds and get exciting new features like punch!

*location tracking function is enabled for your safety and cannot be removed.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 28, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> The tradeoff for some versions of such things were there were very strong benefits to the wireless connections.  I don't recall if that was true of any of the cyberware.



My favorite example of Shadowrun being ham-fisted about adding wireless tech was shuriken and throwing knives in 5th edition:

"...each knife you throw receives a +1 dice pool bonus per knife thrown that Combat Turn at your current target, as the knives inform and adjust for wind and other atmospheric conditions..."

 Nothing says cyberpunk like making sure you hold down the button on your Bluetooth shuriken long enough to pair them to your eyeball!

More to your point, in 5th edition "Cyber weapons can be readied via muscle flexture, neural impulse, or wireless signal." I guess being able to think your wireless cyber-spur into popping out is worth leaving it open for hackers to do the same?


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## CubicsRube (Nov 28, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> This is such a great point that I'm embarrassed I've never considered. Essence loss _almost_ makes sense in Shadowrun, as far as its impact on magic goes (and the vaguely spiritual-made-real element of that setting) but now that you've pointed it out I can't imagine Essence or Humanity loss not seeming really distasteful. Even if you limited it to cyberware or bioware that rewires your nervous system or brain chemistry, that's still oddly ableist.



The red book calls it out as a kind of dissociative disorder from reality. Using cyber legs with enhanced functionality makes you feel less human, but a replacement limb restoring functionality wouldn't.

It's not really sufficient though. I think name should have been changed to something else like maybe "cyber addiction" and tie it to addiction mechanics and themes already in the book. That way they can have their cyber psychos as addicts that have completely lost control, rather than having lost "humanity"


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## CubicsRube (Nov 28, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> My favorite example of Shadowrun being ham-fisted about adding wireless tech was shuriken and throwing knives in 5th edition:
> 
> "...each knife you throw receives a +1 dice pool bonus per knife thrown that Combat Turn at your current target, as the knives inform and adjust for wind and other atmospheric conditions..."
> 
> ...



The wireless thing always bugged me.

I'm not a tech guy but the first thing i know is if you want to secure something, make it hardline only and protect the access ports.


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## Bayushi_seikuro (Nov 28, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> My favorite example of Shadowrun being ham-fisted about adding wireless tech was shuriken and throwing knives in 5th edition:
> 
> "...each knife you throw receives a +1 dice pool bonus per knife thrown that Combat Turn at your current target, as the knives inform and adjust for wind and other atmospheric conditions..."
> 
> ...



I agree about the weirdness of the wireless signal for cyberware, for example.  It would be nice if there was ever a throwaway line somewhere about how the need for wireless signal reception on your cyberspurs/skillwires etc was so that if you were having massive surgery, or even bringing a DocWagon clone online or something, that they needed to have a way to activate/test/reboot cyberware when you weren't able to actively control it.

Again, going back to the setting, I can't speak to CP's setting and changes, but... I think Shadowrun's cyberpunk had a really diffused set of themes you could have stories about: 'old world' magic versus nu-tech; the US falling apart, leaving Seattle alone as a free-state compared to Berlin after WW2, surrounded by other countries (the elves and the Native Americans); ...  Now, some of the themes hit pretty close to home now, I'd say, like the policlubs and the crimes against metahumans.  

I wonder if cyberpunk has reached a point as a genre where it's almost a non-starter to use it to describe a type in the way fantasy or sci-fiction require a little more of a word-handle to get to an accurate description.


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## MGibster (Nov 28, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> This is such a great point that I'm embarrassed I've never considered. Essence loss _almost_ makes sense in Shadowrun, as far as its impact on magic goes (and the vaguely spiritual-made-real element of that setting) but now that you've pointed it out I can't imagine Essence or Humanity loss not seeming really distasteful. Even if you limited it to cyberware or bioware that rewires your nervous system or brain chemistry, that's still oddly ableist.



In Cyberpunk 2020, the cyberware with the single highest Humanity loss was the Mr. Studd sexual implant that would cost you a whopping 3d6.  (At least the single largest cost from the main book.)  Just for reference, a leg would only cost you 2d6 Humanity.  One of the basic themes of cyberpunk is dehumanization through technology and the treatment of others under a capitalistic system devoid of empathy.  The idea was that someone willing to trade their meat for chrome had something wrong with them.  We didn't know what ableism was back in the early 1990s and while I wouldn't doubt  the term existed at the time it wasn't used in the mainstream.  



Grendel_Khan said:


> More to your point, in 5th edition "Cyber weapons can be readied via muscle flexture, neural impulse, or wireless signal." I guess being able to think your wireless cyber-spur into popping out is worth leaving it open for hackers to do the same?



Yeah, when I read that I was like, "^$#$ that.  I'm just going to turn the wi-fi off while I'm out running missions.  I'll update the software when I'm safe at home watching the vid or something."


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 28, 2021)

Bayushi_seikuro said:


> Again, going back to the setting, I can't speak to CP's setting and changes, but... I think Shadowrun's cyberpunk had a really diffused set of themes you could have stories about: 'old world' magic versus nu-tech; the US falling apart, leaving Seattle alone as a free-state compared to Berlin after WW2, surrounded by other countries (the elves and the Native Americans); ...  Now, some of the themes hit pretty close to home now, I'd say, like the policlubs and the crimes against metahumans.




I still think the original Shadowrun setting is one of the most thoughtful and "realistic" in RPGs, in the sense that it dove into issues of racism and inequality, and where even stuff like magic is quickly appropriated and abused by corporations. In hindsight a lot of the stuff about shamans and indigenous peoples in general is a little cringey, but I think even most of that holds up well. It never falls into "noble savage" stereotypes, and doesn't present one version of magic as being inherently better or more ethical than others (I guess with the exception of blood magic, but even that got sort of recontextualized by 5th edition). And I liked that they followed up the more familiar racism against metahumans with the more off-the-wall discrimination toward people who develop random mutations after Haley's comet swings back around. 

I feel like we're hijacking a thread about Cyberpunk Red to talk about Shadowrun, but I'm always here for that.




Bayushi_seikuro said:


> I wonder if cyberpunk has reached a point as a genre where it's almost a non-starter to use it to describe a type in the way fantasy or sci-fiction require a little more of a word-handle to get to an accurate description.




Yeah I think, in an RPG context, cyberpunk describes a really narrow genre. So narrow that, as in this thread, we can't even discuss Cyberpunk 2020 and Red without it drifting into Shadowrun, games that all have basically the same aesthetic and merc-based play mode. I feel like it's really just a very specific subgenre that imprinted on a lot of us at a young age (I say as someone who remembers where he was when first cracking open Neuromancer and When Gravity Fails, two insanely formative books for me)

 Not that anyone shouldn't play games in that subgenre. It's just not, to me, a very versatile one.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 28, 2021)

MGibster said:


> In Cyberpunk 2020, the cyberware with the single highest Humanity loss was the Mr. Studd sexual implant that would cost you a whopping 3d6.  (At least the single largest cost from the main book.)  Just for reference, a leg would only cost you 2d6 Humanity.  One of the basic themes of cyberpunk is dehumanization through technology and the treatment of others under a capitalistic system devoid of empathy.  The idea was that someone willing to trade their meat for chrome had something wrong with them.  We didn't know what ableism was back in the early 1990s and while I wouldn't doubt  the term existed at the time it wasn't used in the mainstream.




What I wrote really makes it seem like I'm dumping on them, but yes, that sort of awareness of ableism, and even a general sense that prosthetics (of all kinds, even of the Studdly variety) are just a reality for some, wasn't on basically anyone's radar back then. It's just another example, I think, of how retrograde the subgenre is, at least in RPGs.


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## ProfessorDetective (Nov 29, 2021)

The opposite end of the 'humanity/essence' idea would be Eclipse Phase, where the bulk of transhumanity are infomorphs that barely got beamed off Earth when the AI uprising happened. 

While swapping egos from a basic bot morph or your digital Eidolon emulator to a cybernetically augmented sun whale  or a starships navcom requires a acclimation roll, it's considered a matter of course that few stay or even are pure flash and blood, with the one group who cares about that being somewhat fringe.

Having a meat brain DOES make you immune to ego hacking and opens up psionics, though.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 29, 2021)

ProfessorDetective said:


> The opposite end of the 'humanity/essence' idea would be Eclipse Phase, where the bulk of transhumanity are infomorphs that barely got beamed off Earth when the AI uprising happened.
> 
> While swapping egos from a basic bot morph or your digital Eidolon emulator to a cybernetically augmented sun whale  or a starships navcom requires a acclimation roll, it's considered a matter of course that few stay or even are pure flash and blood, with the one group who cares about that being somewhat fringe.
> 
> Having a meat brain DOES make you immune to ego hacking and opens up psionics, though.



This sounds cool. Not sure why I've slept on Eclipse Phase all these years. I think maybe it's one or two steps too far along in technological complexity for me to wrap my head around as a GM? Too many options, too much distance from a recognizable human existence. It's the kind of thing I like to read and watch but not play, but I can totally see the appeal.

I think there's something to @lyle.spade 's mention upthread about transhuman settings/games (like Infinity and definitely Eclipse Phase) being a logical successor to cyberpunk. But I still kinda think cyberpunk is more of a limited set of tropes than a true, big-tent genre that can be evolved or built on for RPG purposes. Cyberware, advanced hacking, corporate hegemony and hopeless resistance to it. Apart from the usual neon-on-chrome-on-rain-slick-streets visuals, that's really it. Transhuman SF seems bigger to me, more varied--and, importantly (imo) it's usually missing that "punk" factor. Cyberpunk is an angry, ominous, and perfectly 80's/90's cultural artifact. Maybe that's all it needs to be, and we can move on to gaming in other SF subgenres?


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## Jd Smith1 (Nov 29, 2021)

CubicsRube said:


> The red book calls it out as a kind of dissociative disorder from reality. Using cyber legs with enhanced functionality makes you feel less human, but a replacement limb restoring functionality wouldn't.
> 
> It's not really sufficient though. I think name should have been changed to something else like maybe "cyber addiction" and tie it to addiction mechanics and themes already in the book. That way they can have their cyber psychos as addicts that have completely lost control, rather than having lost "humanity"



Surgical addition/obsession is a very real thing.


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## BrokenTwin (Nov 29, 2021)

A big loss of the appeal of Cyberpunk for me is that it kinda happened, but without all of the cool parts? Corporations causing massive environmental devastation in pursuit of profits, tech being used to spy on us in ways that cyberpunk never dreamed of, the free open net has become a series of walled gardens, and the idea of a bunch of guttersnipes pulling themselves up by their entrepreneurial bootstraps to live a flashy violent life filled with shiny life-changing chrome seems even more implausible than the D&D fantasy superhero lifestyle does.
Cyberpunk stopped being a dark mirror of our potential future and started looking more like a reflection of our present. Except we're not the daredevil live-free-or-die-hard mercs, we're corpo slave #2357.

Having said that, I think Hard Wired Island is probably the best cyberpunk RPG I've seen in a while. Not much for those who're in it for the gear porn, but I think it works really well for a game that focuses on the humanity of a cyberpunk setting. I've read Cyberpunk RED (and have a player that really wants me to run it), but I don't know if it's the game for me right now.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 29, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> I didn't try to compare or combine Traveller and cyberpunk. I merely mentioned Traveller as an example of a sci-fi system that, because of its age, has a retro flavor.



It has gone through more editions than D&D has, and has updated and modernized its approach to rules each time it has done so. It had a new update released only a few weeks ago.

It’s a generic science fiction mix from an ecclectic range of sources, and not retro-flavour at all. It is like claiming that Star Trek is retro-flavour, because that is even older! And rolling 2D6 never gets old.


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## Tun Kai Poh (Nov 29, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> A big loss of the appeal of Cyberpunk for me is that it kinda happened, but without all of the cool parts? Corporations causing massive environmental devastation in pursuit of profits, tech being used to spy on us in ways that cyberpunk never dreamed of, the free open net has become a series of walled gardens, and the idea of a bunch of guttersnipes pulling themselves up by their entrepreneurial bootstraps to live a flashy violent life filled with shiny life-changing chrome seems even more implausible than the D&D fantasy superhero lifestyle does.
> Cyberpunk stopped being a dark mirror of our potential future and started looking more like a reflection of our present. Except we're not the daredevil live-free-or-die-hard mercs, we're corpo slave #2357.
> 
> Having said that, I think Hard Wired Island is probably the best cyberpunk RPG I've seen in a while. Not much for those who're in it for the gear porn, but I think it works really well for a game that focuses on the humanity of a cyberpunk setting. I've read Cyberpunk RED (and have a player that really wants me to run it), but I don't know if it's the game for me right now.



HWI definitely does a great job of being a game about rebels righting to make their neighbourhood a bit less cruddy. And I love the humour in it!


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## Jd Smith1 (Nov 29, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> A big loss of the appeal of Cyberpunk for me is that it kinda happened, but without all of the cool parts? Corporations causing massive environmental devastation in pursuit of profits, tech being used to spy on us in ways that cyberpunk never dreamed of, the free open net has become a series of walled gardens, and the idea of a bunch of guttersnipes pulling themselves up by their entrepreneurial bootstraps to live a flashy violent life filled with shiny life-changing chrome seems even more implausible than the D&D fantasy superhero lifestyle does.
> Cyberpunk stopped being a dark mirror of our potential future and started looking more like a reflection of our present. Except we're not the daredevil live-free-or-die-hard mercs, we're corpo slave #2357.



A big sticking point for me was that the mega corps accepted the amount of individual power that cyber gear provided. They were arming the very people who opposed them. The key to power is the control of power.


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## MGibster (Nov 29, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> A big loss of the appeal of Cyberpunk for me is that it kinda happened, but without all of the cool parts? Corporations causing massive environmental devastation in pursuit of profits, tech being used to spy on us in ways that cyberpunk never dreamed of, the free open net has become a series of walled gardens, and the idea of a bunch of guttersnipes pulling themselves up by their entrepreneurial bootstraps to live a flashy violent life filled with shiny life-changing chrome seems even more implausible than the D&D fantasy superhero lifestyle does.



The funny thing is that if you wanted to look at a Cyberpunk world look no further than the United States in the late 19th century.  An era where corporations would hire goons to go wreck the competition (see Standard Oil), companies with virtual monopolies punishing those they didn't like by charging them different rates (railroads), environmental damage in spades as smoke filled the skies, rivers became polluted, and soil was striped in mines, and of course workers in factories and mines toiling under brutal conditions while never getting ahead financially.  


Jd Smith1 said:


> A big sticking point for me was that the mega corps accepted the amount of individual power that cyber gear provided. They were arming the very people who opposed them. The key to power is the control of power.



But the corporations have far more resources than what most of the PCs could get.  Sure, they can get all cybered up, but Militech or Arasaka are going to have a lot of employees or contractors who are just as cybered up and willing to kill for them.


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## Thomas Shey (Nov 29, 2021)

ProfessorDetective said:


> The opposite end of the 'humanity/essence' idea would be Eclipse Phase, where the bulk of transhumanity are infomorphs that barely got beamed off Earth when the AI uprising happened.
> 
> While swapping egos from a basic bot morph or your digital Eidolon emulator to a cybernetically augmented sun whale  or a starships navcom requires a acclimation roll, it's considered a matter of course that few stay or even are pure flash and blood, with the one group who cares about that being somewhat fringe.
> 
> Having a meat brain DOES make you immune to ego hacking and opens up psionics, though.




Well, EP has the advantage that it already assumes _everyone_ will be cybered or biomodded up the gills, so they don't need a mechanism to discourage it beyond rep.  The difference between a typical starting PC and a PC with a high end morph just isn't all _that_ pronounced.

CP2020 and SR didn't assume the same degree of modification, so it had to have _something_ to address the potential cyberware arms race, and money was unlikely to be enough.


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## MGibster (Nov 29, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> What I wrote really makes it seem like I'm dumping on them, but yes, that sort of awareness of ableism, and even a general sense that prosthetics (of all kinds, even of the Studdly variety) are just a reality for some, wasn't on basically anyone's radar back then. It's just another example, I think, of how retrograde the subgenre is, at least in RPGs.



During and after the Civil War, a lot of Americans had to explore the ramifications of soldiers returning from war crippled and maimed.  Most Americans were Christians back then, and believed at some point in the future they could count on being resurrected on Judgment Day.  If they were buried missing an arm or a leg, would they still be missing that arm or leg when resurrected?  (This is one of the reasons cremation was so controversial.  If you have no body, how can you be resurrected?)  So at some point it was just accepted that you would be resurrected at your most heroic.  I.e.  You would come back with limbs and body intact.  Though what that said about someone with a congenital deformity or missing limb I do not know.  

Cyberpunk Red was released in 2020 (I think).  We've had returning soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs or scars many years since 2002.  I can't help but think that might have changed some attitudes over the years.  Though, even back in the early 90s, I know my friends and I wondered cyberware meant for people who got into accidents or were born with limbs that didn't work.  If someone is in a wheelchair, is that a Humanity loss?  Artificial heart?


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 29, 2021)

TrippyHippy said:


> It has gone through more editions than D&D has, and has updated and modernized its approach to rules each time it has done so. It had a new update released only a few weeks ago.
> 
> It’s a generic science fiction mix from an ecclectic range of sources, and not retro-flavour at all. It is like claiming that Star Trek is retro-flavour, because that is even older! And rolling 2D6 never gets old.



It just goes to show that our views on this matter completely differ.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 29, 2021)

I think that inexpensive cybergear would be an environmental nightmare. If millions or even billions of people have such enhancements, the existing electronic waste problem would get a whole lot worse since there's no way all of the cyberware would be be recyclable and even if it were, it would simply put an additional strain on the recycling infrastructure.


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## billd91 (Nov 29, 2021)

MGibster said:


> Cyberpunk Red was released in 2020 (I think).  We've had returning soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs or scars many years since 2002.  I can't help but think that might have changed some attitudes over the years.  Though, even back in the early 90s, I know my friends and I wondered cyberware meant for people who got into accidents or were born with limbs that didn't work.  If someone is in a wheelchair, is that a Humanity loss?  Artificial heart?



There's a point where this veers pretty strongly into overthinking it. The themes in Cyberpunk literature and the game aren't about basic prosthetics, wheelchairs, artificial hearts, and other implants with a purely therapeutic function. There's no humanity loss for them because they're not what Cyberpunk is about and never have been. While a PC might end up with a cyberlimb because of an injury they received, let's face it, they're not going to stop with simple replacement function if they can afford it. They're going to get something better than the meat they had - and *that's* what the humanity loss is about.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 29, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> It just goes to show that our views on this matter completely differ.



It isn’t just an issue of viewpoints. It is a misconception to say that Traveller is retro. It is a modern science fiction roleplaying system and setting in it’s modern incarnation.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 29, 2021)

TrippyHippy said:


> It isn’t just an issue of viewpoints. It is a misconception to say that Traveller is retro. It is a modern science fiction roleplaying system and setting in it’s modern incarnation.



Well, I beg to differ.


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## Jd Smith1 (Nov 29, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> I think that inexpensive cybergear would be an environmental nightmare. If millions or even billions of people have such enhancements, the existing electronic waste problem would get a whole lot worse since there's no way all of the cyberware would be be recyclable and even if it were, it would simply put an additional strain on the recycling infrastructure.



Given that the setting is dominated by completely unregulated megacorps immune to civil liability, I would say that that would be the environment's least worry. No emission controls, no requirements to process sewage into safer states...and healthy profits to be made selling clean water, clean air, uncontaminated food. 

A quick review of _The Jungle_ would be handy.


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## TrippyHippy (Nov 29, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> Well, I beg to differ.



Not relevant, as pointed out. It is not retro-sci-fi, however much you beg to differ. It is a misinterpretation of what Traveller is.


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## Ravenbrook (Nov 29, 2021)

TrippyHippy said:


> Not relevant, as pointed out. It is not retro-sci-fi, however much you beg to differ. It is a misinterpretation of what Traveller is.


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 29, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> Having said that, I think Hard Wired Island is probably the best cyberpunk RPG I've seen in a while. Not much for those who're in it for the gear porn, but I think it works really well for a game that focuses on the humanity of a cyberpunk setting. I've read Cyberpunk RED (and have a player that really wants me to run it), but I don't know if it's the game for me right now.




I dismissed Hard Wired Island because of a single preview image that felt like it wasn't the tone I was looking for. But looking at the description on Drivethru it seems very cool. And this rundown on how it approaches cyberpunk is great:


*Capitalism? No thanks.* Good cyberpunk is anti-capitalist. It's about how technology without ethics can make social inequality worse. The wealthy use it to cement their power and perpetuate the status quo, while marginalized communities are kept that way. The PCs want to use it to break the current system. They work against their enemies, not for them.
*Cyberpunk should be relevant.* It is a study of where our society could go in the coming years. The issues faced by people in a cyberpunk setting should have some relevance to issues faced by the audience, even if they're not the same. Retro future, present problems.
*Cybernetics are not inherently good or bad.* Like most tech, what matters is how it's used. In Hard Wired Island, the problem is that cybernetics often serves the needs of capital rather than people; Any alienating or dysphoric effects come from being reshaped into some corporation's property. There is no mechanic that suggests wearing a prosthetic makes you less human, or prone to mental illness; instead, the tradeoff of augments is adding to your financial burdens.
*Cyberpunk is not just an aesthetic.* Cyberpunk shouldn't just be about the neon-lit adventures of a group of trenchcoat futurists as they amass wealth and power through violence. Hard Wired Island is about a group of marginalized people using technology to try to change the status quo.
*Many perspectives.* Good cyberpunk examines how technology and power intersect in many different communities. As an orbital space station, the city of Grand Cross can and should include perspectives from all over the world. The setting includes cyborgs and androids, but they're not stand-ins for minorities; they have their own identities and issues, which can change depending on how they intersect with other things.


If anything, that breakdown just reinforces my sense that cyberpunk is sort of a time capsule subgenre without a ton of fresh gameplay options. But clearly HWI _gets_ what it's about. Definitely going to check it out. Thanks @BrokenTwin !


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## Grendel_Khan (Nov 29, 2021)

billd91 said:


> There's a point where this veers pretty strongly into overthinking it. The themes in Cyberpunk literature and the game aren't about basic prosthetics, wheelchairs, artificial hearts, and other implants with a purely therapeutic function. There's no humanity loss for them because they're not what Cyberpunk is about and never have been. While a PC might end up with a cyberlimb because of an injury they received, let's face it, they're not going to stop with simple replacement function if they can afford it. They're going to get something better than the meat they had - and *that's* what the humanity loss is about.




I hear you, but I think--apologies in advance if this seems aggressive--you might doing a tiny bit of overthinking yourself. Should humanity loss really be about intent? What happens if someone gets a prosthetic that isn't all that great, but has a compartment for a pistol? Should that trigger less humanity loss than a super-chromed-up monstrosity with a pop-out spur and jump-jets? By your framing--which, again, makes a lot of sense--I'd say yes, but then would you regain some of that lost humanity by later downgrading? Does that still make sense?

I also get that, mechanically, Humanity loss (and similar stuff in other games) is about reigning in PCs. But when I think about the cyberpunk fiction I've really loved, cyberpsychosis isn't really a factor. Is the Major in Ghost in the Shell, with her full body replacement, on a razor's edge between sanity and psychosis? Is Batou? They seem deeply human and almost unnaturally level-headed, to me. And is the cop who refuses to get any mods more human, and less disordered? Or in Neuromancer, is Molly's personality a product of her being modded, or her life experiences, which were rough throughout and include what sounds like a pretty brutal recovery from the procedure?

I feel like there are smarter ways of handling PCs' mods now. Could just treat the body like equipment slots, and where you're full, you're full, no need to moralize the decision. A game where all the players are full-body borgs seems totally fine to me. There could still be a ton of variety in what different PCs get, whether they all start fully modded or work toward it.


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## Norade (Dec 1, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> A big loss of the appeal of Cyberpunk for me is that it kinda happened, but without all of the cool parts? Corporations causing massive environmental devastation in pursuit of profits, tech being used to spy on us in ways that cyberpunk never dreamed of, the free open net has become a series of walled gardens, and the idea of a bunch of guttersnipes pulling themselves up by their entrepreneurial bootstraps to live a flashy violent life filled with shiny life-changing chrome seems even more implausible than the D&D fantasy superhero lifestyle does.
> Cyberpunk stopped being a dark mirror of our potential future and started looking more like a reflection of our present. Except we're not the daredevil live-free-or-die-hard mercs, we're corpo slave #2357.
> 
> Having said that, I think Hard Wired Island is probably the best cyberpunk RPG I've seen in a while. Not much for those who're in it for the gear porn, but I think it works really well for a game that focuses on the humanity of a cyberpunk setting. I've read Cyberpunk RED (and have a player that really wants me to run it), but I don't know if it's the game for me right now.



I second HWI. It's very rules-light as far as games in this genre go, has mechanics that can serve to put pressure on your team without being oppressive, and has a hard focus on activism and community improvement rather than the pure looking out for #1 of the genre's classic works.


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## Doctor Futurity (Dec 2, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


>



It sounds like you haven't actually played Traveller in a very long time. Also, I think you and trippyhippy are using retro in different contexts.

EDIT: example: if you think Traveller is retro because it evokes ideas of SF space opera that really took off in the late sixties and early seventies I think you could make a case that Traveller's core universal concepts are derived from there, but so is about 70% of all science fiction currently in print today; that's not so much retro as a continuum along which SF percolates. But if your argument is Traveller is retro in the sense that someone who learns Mongoose's edition of the game today might find it suspiciously easy to pick up the original edition of Classic Traveller and play with minimal adjustment, then yeah, Traveller is totally retro or OSR in that sense. It's retained its core identify as a game system quite well, despite how many weird side iterations it's gone through at times (TNE, D20 edition, maybe Traveller 5 arguably).


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## Doctor Futurity (Dec 2, 2021)

My thoughts on Cyberpunk Red (and 2020, which I played to death) with regards to cyberware, humanity and cyberpsychosis is that back in 1991 these were very clearly hypotheticals. In medicine today we are manufacturing prosthetics which work well, and some even pick up brain signals based on what I have read. None of this existed in 1991 when I played the 2020 edition. It's not where the proposed cyberware of the future might lie, but it is where, roughly, Cyberpunk predicted we'd have much more advanced prosthetics and augmentations, and it was basically right. But it's ideas on how this affects our humanity are not out of date yet because we haven't even gotten close to the world CP2020 predicted.

So in 1991 this was all hypothetical science fiction. Now we're a lot closer to that future, but still very far away, and the reality puts greater odds on gene editing and modification through technology like CRISPR, but prosthetics are most definitely a nascent reality. The question becomes, and I think there's till plenty of room for speculation on this without misconstruing the question as being ableist: what happens to our sense of humanity and our behavior when we are able to cheaply and efficiently augment ourselves to the point where we are effectively weapons of war? What happens when someone with diagnosed psychopathy seeks such augmentations? What happens to society in general with the introduction of cheap, efficient and non-rejectable body modifications that can include largely unregulated lethal weaponry?

Controversy about the video game aside, there are some really chilling depictions in that game as to what sort of body modifications could happen in the proposed future of Cyberpunk Red and I think there's plenty of evidence in the current era that even without body modifications that include lethal weapons that just the way our internet functions has had an impact on humanity and empathy. Cyberpunk is, from my perspective, more relevant now than it ever has been.


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## Doctor Futurity (Dec 2, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> I hear you, but I think--apologies in advance if this seems aggressive--you might doing a tiny bit of overthinking yourself. Should humanity loss really be about intent? What happens if someone gets a prosthetic that isn't all that great, but has a compartment for a pistol? Should that trigger less humanity loss than a super-chromed-up monstrosity with a pop-out spur and jump-jets? By your framing--which, again, makes a lot of sense--I'd say yes, but then would you regain some of that lost humanity by later downgrading? Does that still make sense?
> 
> I also get that, mechanically, Humanity loss (and similar stuff in other games) is about reigning in PCs. But when I think about the cyberpunk fiction I've really loved, cyberpsychosis isn't really a factor. Is the Major in Ghost in the Shell, with her full body replacement, on a razor's edge between sanity and psychosis? Is Batou? They seem deeply human and almost unnaturally level-headed, to me. And is the cop who refuses to get any mods more human, and less disordered? Or in Neuromancer, is Molly's personality a product of her being modded, or her life experiences, which were rough throughout and include what sounds like a pretty brutal recovery from the procedure?
> 
> I feel like there are smarter ways of handling PCs' mods now. Could just treat the body like equipment slots, and where you're full, you're full, no need to moralize the decision. A game where all the players are full-body borgs seems totally fine to me. There could still be a ton of variety in what different PCs get, whether they all start fully modded or work toward it.



You make an important point that the notion of humanity loss and cyberpsychosis is not something that appears universally in Cybperunk fiction and film. I think it is better to consider that the notion of humanity loss is specific to how Cyberpunk 2020 and CP Red model the possible future, by proposing that extremely invasive and sometimes lethal augmentation actually does have an erosive impact on humanity. It is definitely not the only way to model a cyberpunk future, and one which thinks we will be able to handle such modifications may be looked at as a more optimistic version of the genre....but I think Cyberpunk Red is very deliberately choosing to view the future in a more pessimistic light.

From a real world perspective I think I can summarize it like this: if someone loses a limb as a soldier or in an accident and gains a prosthetic replacement, we have clear evidence that this is a good thing, and a great benefit to the person suffering the loss to help them return to a normal life. But the cyberpunk future is about people who live in a world where a sense of ownership of your own eyes, limbs, even your brain has already been culturally desensitized through corporate marketing and a cultural sea change to the point where you will go have a ripperdoc cut out the natural body part and replace it, willingly, with artificial parts purely for aesthetic/style reasons....and that's before even considering this is a society in which modding yourself into a lethal weapon is already considered a smart move by many for survival purposes. Cyberpunk Red depicts a universe in which the entire culture of thought has shifted to the idea that we're really all just "meat" and that removing the meat to replace it with something more lasting is both acceptable and makes you a smart consumer. That is nowhere near the world we live in today, but I can easily see how we could end up in that future.


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## Grendel_Khan (Dec 2, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> From a real world perspective I think I can summarize it like this: if someone loses a limb as a soldier or in an accident and gains a prosthetic replacement, we have clear evidence that this is a good thing, and a great benefit to the person suffering the loss to help them return to a normal life. But the cyberpunk future is about people who live in a world where a sense of ownership of your own eyes, limbs, even your brain has already been culturally desensitized through corporate marketing and a cultural sea change to the point where you will go have a ripperdoc cut out the natural body part and replace it, willingly, with artificial parts purely for aesthetic/style reasons....and that's before even considering this is a society in which modding yourself into a lethal weapon is already considered a smart move by many for survival purposes. Cyberpunk Red depicts a universe in which the entire culture of thought has shifted to the idea that we're really all just "meat" and that removing the meat to replace it with something more lasting is both acceptable and makes you a smart consumer. That is nowhere near the world we live in today, but I can easily see how we could end up in that future.




I like your interpretation a lot. I might disagree about it being all that feasible--if we've learned one thing since Neuromancer came out it's that digital innovation is insanely rapid, but mechanical innovation, whether for prosthetics, space travel, or personal jet packs, creeps forward at a snail's pace--but I think you're totally right about how humanity loss fits into CPR's premise and tone.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 2, 2021)

Well, it doesn't help that, much as there's still a lot of complexities in play there, we've probably learned in the last few years that while it might not be impossible to get cyberpunk style cyberware to work, the technology to make biological modifications will likely beat that to the finish line by quite a gap even with the difficulties there.  And while cyberpunk style fiction hasn't ignored biomods, its been generally a minority element of what you see there.


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## Grendel_Khan (Dec 2, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, it doesn't help that, much as there's still a lot of complexities in play there, we've probably learned in the last few years that while it might not be impossible to get cyberpunk style cyberware to work, the technology to make biological modifications will likely beat that to the finish line by quite a gap even with the difficulties there.  And while cyberpunk style fiction hasn't ignored biomods, its been generally a minority element of what you see there.




Definitely. This might already be out there in TTRPG form, and I just don't know about it, but I could see a truly evolved/updated/recontextualized cyberpunk game ditching all things chrome and leaning all the way into bioware, custom viruses, clones and replicants instead of robots, even a more biotech version of hacking and the net. More eXistenZ than Elysium.

(And no offense to Genefunk 2090, but I don't think it's going far enough to reframe or reinvent the genre in that way)


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 2, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> Definitely. This might already be out there in TTRPG form, and I just don't know about it, but I could see a truly evolved/updated/recontextualized cyberpunk game ditching all things chrome and leaning all the way into bioware, custom viruses, clones and replicants instead of robots, even a more biotech version of hacking and the net. More eXistenZ than Elysium.




They aren't super well-known; you had things like the game you mentioned and the Amazing Engine game Kromosome, but they don't have the visibility of a Cyberpunk Red or Shadowrun, or honestly, even something like Interface Zero.


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## Grendel_Khan (Dec 2, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> They aren't super well-known; you had things like the game you mentioned and the Amazing Engine game Kromosome, but they don't have the visibility of a Cyberpunk Red or Shadowrun, or honestly, even something like Interface Zero.




I hadn't heard about Kromosome! This disclaimer on the Drivethru listing is interesting--kinda wonder if a whole lot of older cyberpunk games should have something similar:


We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.​
EDIT: Whoops. Realizing now that's just their boilerplate disclaimer for all older Wizards content, not unique to Kromosome or anything in particular. Still, knowing cyberpunk tropes, I have a feeling it applies...


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 2, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> I hadn't heard about Kromosome! This disclaimer on the Drivethru listing is interesting--kinda wonder if a whole lot of older cyberpunk games should have something similar:
> 
> 
> We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.​
> EDIT: Whoops. Realizing now that's just their boilerplate disclaimer for all older Wizards content, not unique to Kromosome or anything in particular. Still, knowing cyberpunk tropes, I have a feeling it applies...




I don't recall a lot of it there, honestly, but its been a while and being a white het man it might have cruised by me if it wasn't super egregious.

But yeah, that boilerplate comes from the reaction to some republished older D&D material mostly.


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## MGibster (Dec 3, 2021)

I can't recall ever playing a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign with someone playing a Rockerboy.  Which is somewhat odd because Johnny Silverhand was one of what we'd call iconic characters from the book along the likes of Rogue, Armitage, and Blackhand.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever saw someone play a Media either.  I don't know if it was because of a lack of interest or people just didn't know how to fit them into the game.  Anyone here have trouble with any of the roles?  If I ever get my next campaign up and running, I'm probably going to ask players to avoid making Lawmen and Corporates though I might be able to make the latter work.  

Anyone remember _Interface_ magazine?  They had a license to published Cyberpunk 2020 information and each issue had things like cybernetics, police profiles of gangs/individuals, new drugs, corporations, etc., etc. you could introduce to your game.  They even had movie and book reviews including _Street Lethal _and _Highlander 2.   _There were only six issues published between 1991 and 1992, but, wow, they left quite an impression on me.  I had to include Spider Lady, a ripper doc feature in issue two in 1991, as an NPC in my upcoming campaign.


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## BrokenTwin (Dec 3, 2021)

There's the common joke I've heard about Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun games where people will say "Let's just play a band!", but I've never actually seen it done. Which is a shame, because I honestly think both systems have the class archetypes to play that really well. Rockerboy for the lead/face of the band, Media for their public relations, Solo for the bouncer, Executive for the financial backer, Tech for the roadie, Netrunner for the studio mix, Medtech for their substance supplier (an important part of any cyberpunk rock band)...


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## Grendel_Khan (Dec 3, 2021)

"Rockerboy" as a class in CP2020 made my skeleton cringe out of my body when the game first published. That they kept that name in Red is just wild, and indicative of how little they actually wanted to update, and how set they were on leaning into nostalgiapunk.

I don't have an issue with the character option itself, and I agree with @BrokenTwin--the game basically provides the framework to support a band campaign. But boy oh boy, Rockerboy....


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## MGibster (Dec 3, 2021)

BrokenTwin said:


> Which is a shame, because I honestly think both systems have the class archetypes to play that really well. Rockerboy for the lead/face of the band, Media for their public relations, Solo for the bouncer, Executive for the financial backer, Tech for the roadie, Netrunner for the studio mix, Medtech for their substance supplier (an important part of any cyberpunk rock band)...



One of the Cyberpunk 2020 publications actually makes this suggestion but I can't remember which one.  I think for some GMs and players, they have trouble figuring out how all the roles might fit together in one campaign.  Pondsmith and others weaved Johnny Silverhand into the game effectively as did Rockstar with Cyberpunk 2077, but I can see how people might have a hard time with bringing a Media on a heist mission even if it happens in the fiction.  



Grendel_Khan said:


> "Rockerboy" as a class in CP2020 made my skeleton cringe out of my body when the game first published. That they kept that name in Red is just wild, and indicative of how little they actually wanted to update, and how set they were on leaning into nostalgiapunk.



I think some folks were also unhappy with Dog Boys and Glitter Boys from Rifts.  I probably wouldn't have changed Rockerboys myself if I were running the show.  The game has a legacy and I'd probably work to preserve it.  I might include Riot Girls or some other alternative name though.  Though, in the end, I'd probably still just refer to them as Rockerboys in the text.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 3, 2021)

MGibster said:


> One of the Cyberpunk 2020 publications actually makes this suggestion but I can't remember which one.  I think for some GMs and players, they have trouble figuring out how all the roles might fit together in one campaign.  Pondsmith and others weaved Johnny Silverhand into the game effectively as did Rockstar with Cyberpunk 2077, but I can see how people might have a hard time with bringing a Media on a heist mission even if it happens in the fiction.




Its one of those things that I think is easy a couple times, but starts to feel strained after that.


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## Doctor Futurity (Dec 10, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> I like your interpretation a lot. I might disagree about it being all that feasible--if we've learned one thing since Neuromancer came out it's that digital innovation is insanely rapid, but mechanical innovation, whether for prosthetics, space travel, or personal jet packs, creeps forward at a snail's pace--but I think you're totally right about how humanity loss fits into CPR's premise and tone.



Yeah, I think in our actual real world we're moving toward a more biopunk future. CRISPR tech alone is starting to revolutionize what we can do with gene editing to the point that international conferences have been held to address the ethical issues the technology brings up.


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## MGibster (Dec 11, 2021)

Doctor Futurity said:


> Yeah, I think in our actual real world we're moving toward a more biopunk future. CRISPR tech alone is starting to revolutionize what we can do with gene editing to the point that international conferences have been held to address the ethical issues the technology brings up.



I would agree and I think a lot of us kind of felt like that by the end of the 1990s.  I think Cyberpunk 2020 did have bio technology like new limbs, organs, and whatnot but they were pretty much reserved for the wealthy.  I designed an NPC Fixer for my yet-to-be-realized campaign named Otto Sharkey whose had some bio-sculpting to resemble a man/shark hybrid.  They had poser gangs in old school Cyberpunk, folks who were bio sculpted to achieve some sort of uniform look sometimes based on celebrities.  I remember one gang where all the men resembled one of the Kennedys and the women Marilyn Monroe.  I figure you'll have furries living their furdom at all times with bio sculpting available.


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## CubicsRube (Dec 11, 2021)

Cuberpunk is one of the few RPGs that i think could be run successfully if everyone was the same class.

I could see a party of all rockerboys trying to make a name for themselves.

My dream is to play in a cyberpunk heist where everyone is a netrunner.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 11, 2021)

Late in the day they had a supplement that had some serious biotech, including full blown genemods.  But it was clearly an afterthought.


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## CTPhipps (Dec 11, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> A big sticking point for me was that the mega corps accepted the amount of individual power that cyber gear provided. They were arming the very people who opposed them. The key to power is the control of power.




Eh, isn't that part of Cyberpunk that the corporations aren't very GOOD at instituting control? The trains don't run on time in Night City because the corporations are at each other's throats and humanity has balkanized even further. Hence society is degenerating even further because governments, as bad as they were, at least had the pretense of being for the people.

Re: Ableism

I think you could easily overcome a lot of it and make it relevant satire with the idea that most cybernetics produced either on the street or by the corporations aren't designed very well and lots of corners cut because, well, of course they are. Mind you, they totally removed the concept of "cyberpsychosis" in the video game and revealed it was just an excuse for police to shoot cyborgs rather than deal with the option of desescalation.

I liked that twist.


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## MGibster (Dec 11, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> I think you could easily overcome a lot of it and make it relevant satire with the idea that most cybernetics produced either on the street or by the corporations aren't designed very well and lots of corners cut because, well, of course they are. Mind you, they totally removed the concept of "cyberpsychosis" in the video game and revealed it was just an excuse for police to shoot cyborgs rather than deal with the option of desescalation.



I mean, sort of?  On all the cyberpsychosis missions you go on those people are legitimate threats to the safety of all those around them.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 11, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> Eh, isn't that part of Cyberpunk that the corporations aren't very GOOD at instituting control? The trains don't run on time in Night City because the corporations are at each other's throats and humanity has balkanized even further. Hence society is degenerating even further because governments, as bad as they were, at least had the pretense of being for the people.



That doesn't work on an economic level. Balkanization is good for business, after all. I just don't see corporations producing high-end, durable, and easy to both install and maintain cyber gear whose principle purchasers are elements hostile to the corps' interests. Not only is it counter-productive, but there is no continuing sales.

A modern-day example is arms sales to Third World factions: lots of small arms and light-medium support weapons that are fine for the sort of conflicts being fought, but which consume ammunition and magazines, especially in the hands of low-skill troops. You sell the rifles, SAWs, GPMGs, etc at a moderate profit, and then gouge them on ammunition. Its a money machine, and the customer base remains strictly a low-threat local power.

Its a tried and true sales model as old as firearms.


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## MGibster (Dec 11, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> Eh, isn't that part of Cyberpunk that the corporations aren't very GOOD at instituting control? The trains don't run on time in Night City because the corporations are at each other's throats and humanity has balkanized even further. Hence society is degenerating even further because governments, as bad as they were, at least had the pretense of being for the people.




Like now, if its in the best interest of a corporation to maintain some infrastructure they'll work towards maintaining that infrastructure.  This might not mean paying anything out-of-pocket (but it might), even something simple like some form of putting pressure on the local government to do something about it.  In _Cyberpunk Red_, the city has a light rail lev train that runs to different locations including the Executive Zone.  Some of those trains go to other districts in Night City and I bet they run on time more or less.  After all, corporations need their employees to be able to get to work in a timely manner.  In Red, it mentions that the city runs police patrols on the line to control crime and vandalism though the corporate stations are much nicer than the city stations.  I would probably think of the trains as akin to 1970s New York subways.  



Jd Smith1 said:


> That doesn't work on an economic level. Balkanization is good for business, after all. I just don't see corporations producing high-end, durable, and easy to both install and maintain cyber gear whose principle purchasers are elements hostile to the corps' interests. Not only is it counter-productive, but there is no continuing sales.



I don't think elements hostile to the corps' interest are the primary purchasers of cyberware.  Most people who purchase cyberware probably become lifelong customers (with lifelong being defined as the life of the product).  The average person who purchases a set of Kiroshi cyber optics probably goes to their licensed clinics for maintenance and upgrades.   And when the next model comes in, they'll find a bunch of eager customers just waiting to purchase the new version just like we do with iPhone today.  

Most cyberpunk games present a group of PCs with a fairly skewed perspective and I think that's especially true of Cyberpunk 2020 and Red.  The truth is, these PCs could make a fairly comfortable living as corporate drones, but, for whatever reason, choose to live on the edge of society.  Maybe they like the excitement, maybe they're not cut out for an office job, or maybe they just don't want some master jerking the chain attached to their collar, but for whatever reason they've chosen to live outside the system.


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## CTPhipps (Dec 11, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I mean, sort of?  On all the cyberpsychosis missions you go on those people are legitimate threats to the safety of all those around them.




I mean, none of them are rampaging because they've been driven mad by cybernetics. If you read the shards, they're all going on killing sprees for entirely other reasons like poverty, their cybernetics being badly installed, their daughter being sex trafficked by the Tyger Claws, and so on. It was a nice twist, I felt.



Jd Smith1 said:


> That doesn't work on an economic level. Balkanization is good for business, after all. I just don't see corporations producing high-end, durable, and easy to both install and maintain cyber gear whose principle purchasers are elements hostile to the corps' interests. Not only is it counter-productive, but there is no continuing sales.
> 
> A modern-day example is arms sales to Third World factions: lots of small arms and light-medium support weapons that are fine for the sort of conflicts being fought, but which consume ammunition and magazines, especially in the hands of low-skill troops. You sell the rifles, SAWs, GPMGs, etc at a moderate profit, and then gouge them on ammunition. Its a money machine, and the customer base remains strictly a low-threat local power.
> 
> Its a tried and true sales model as old as firearms.




What I'm saying is the corporations don't actually have nearly the control to dictate terms. The governments of the world still exist in the Cyberpunk world with Europe being still in power. The United States as of RED is also in charge of Militech (albeit its slowly taking over from within) and other corporations compete. There's also the fact the majority of hardware an Edgerunner possesses isn't going to be "straight off the rack" cybernetics.

Arasaka employees will have Arasaka brand cybernetics and civilians will buy the normal stuff but any Edgerunner worth his salt will have their own privately made and assembled cybernetics from their local Ripperdocs. Sort of like how you're not going to see Hackers get their hardware from computer stores but assemble their own.



MGibster said:


> Like now, if its in the best interest of a corporation to maintain some infrastructure they'll work towards maintaining that infrastructure.  This might not mean paying anything out-of-pocket (but it might), even something simple like some form of putting pressure on the local government to do something about it.  In _Cyberpunk Red_, the city has a light rail lev train that runs to different locations including the Executive Zone.  Some of those trains go to other districts in Night City and I bet they run on time more or less.  After all, corporations need their employees to be able to get to work in a timely manner.  In Red, it mentions that the city runs police patrols on the line to control crime and vandalism though the corporate stations are much nicer than the city stations.  I would probably think of the trains as akin to 1970s New York subways.




I imagine it's a careful balance of the fact you need the corporations to keep enough infrastructure going they can do but also preserve the satire that is central to cyberpunk: that privatization of basic public needs and government has utterly naughty word over the world. Its a capitalist dystopia where WW3 was fought between Militech and Arasaka. So you need to make the corpos competent enough to be rulers of the world but also incompetent enough to note that their takeover of so much is what has ruined the planet and life for themselves.

Like in 1984 where it comments that even the Ruling Party's lives suck due to how hard and demanding the world is.

One detail I always liked was Mike Pondsmith's sourcebook on Japan (I forget the name) which revealed that Japan had every bit as much misery and anti-Arasaka sentiment as Night City because Arasaka had ruined it as well--because fascists gonna fascist.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 12, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> What I'm saying is the corporations don't actually have nearly the control to dictate terms. The governments of the world still exist in the Cyberpunk world with Europe being still in power. The United States as of RED is also in charge of Militech (albeit its slowly taking over from within) and other corporations compete. There's also the fact the majority of hardware an Edgerunner possesses isn't going to be "straight off the rack" cybernetics.
> 
> Arasaka employees will have Arasaka brand cybernetics and civilians will buy the normal stuff but any Edgerunner worth his salt will have their own privately made and assembled cybernetics from their local Ripperdocs. Sort of like how you're not going to see Hackers get their hardware from computer stores but assemble their own.



Its not terms, its economics, which corps most definitely control. 

Let's use the cellphone example: right now your phone is tracked, listened in upon, have either the camera or the mike activated by the manufacturer, or your provider, or both, depending upon brand. Ditto for game platforms and smart TVs. Increasingly common for smart appliances. Later model cars as well.

So, why would the future, less-regulated corps produce gear that was stand-alone, no back doors, no service contract needs, nothing? 

I do not believe that the ripperdoc concept could contain enough infrastructure to be able to build high-end, cutting edge technology, much less in quantities sufficient to gear up so many street samurai.  

Sure, some hackers assemble their own computers, but a lot don't; very few write their own code, but rather buy programs off the lower Web.

It just doesn't track, especially in the light of current trends. As time passes and the corps are freed from civil and criminal penalties, the worst aspects of today will be magnified. So even if a ripperdoc somehow had the time and resources to build gear from parts in bulk, why would a corp not send a few large types around with a 'cease and desist order' in the form of multiple broken bones?


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## CTPhipps (Dec 12, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Its not terms, its economics, which corps most definitely control.
> 
> Let's use the cellphone example: right now your phone is tracked, listened in upon, have either the camera or the mike activated by the manufacturer, or your provider, or both, depending upon brand. Ditto for game platforms and smart TVs. Increasingly common for smart appliances. Later model cars as well.
> 
> ...




It's very much part of the setting's central conceit that the Street Stuff is far more advanced than anything used by Arasaka and the corporate thugs as a general rule. The whole point is that the mass produced garbage produced by the corporation is taken and improved by the geniuses and people who know the workarounds by those in the know. Otherwise, you wouldn't have the corporations hiring mercenaries rather than using their own people who are by and large inferior to the Edgerunners who can command larger fees as well as do better as independent agents.

The Corporations are at the mercy of each other and their own constant wars after all. Its very much a DIY setting.

At least that's my interpretation. It has an idealized view of the criminal underworld versus the man.


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## MGibster (Dec 12, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> I mean, none of them are rampaging because they've been driven mad by cybernetics. If you read the shards, they're all going on killing sprees for entirely other reasons like poverty, their cybernetics being badly installed, their daughter being sex trafficked by the Tyger Claws, and so on. It was a nice twist, I felt.



I did read the shards and you're right that there were exacerbating factors.  But well balanced people don't generally go on violent spree attacks even when under stress.  And quite frankly, dealing with people in the process of a spree non-violently or with less-than-lethal force would be very difficult.  I'm not sure how I did it in game as I didn't switch to non-lethal weapons.  If I had a big ass sniper rifle I used a big ass sniper rifle and somehow the psychosis guy would live. 



CTPhipps said:


> What I'm saying is the corporations don't actually have nearly the control to dictate terms. The governments of the world still exist in the Cyberpunk world with Europe being still in power. The United States as of RED is also in charge of Militech (albeit its slowly taking over from within) and other corporations compete. There's also the fact the majority of hardware an Edgerunner possesses isn't going to be "straight off the rack" cybernetics.



Oh, yeah.  The corps are still recovering from the last corporate war and are less powerful in Red than they were in 2020.  But even in 2020, the U.S. government is a force to be reckoned with.  They're still buying all sorts of equipment from Militech and others and invading places like Central America.  This is an example of the skewed perspective we get at players.  For the most part, we're dealing with corporations not the US Government.



CTPhipps said:


> It's very much part of the setting's central conceit that the Street Stuff is far more advanced than anything used by Arasaka and the corporate thugs as a general rule. The whole point is that the mass produced garbage produced by the corporation is taken and improved by the geniuses and people who know the workarounds by those in the know.



At least in Cyberpunk 2020, most of the gear you end up using is pretty much what you find off the rack.  A Solo might add a few bells and whistles to their Arasaka Minami 10, but that doesn't mean the Minami 10 started out as a piece of garbage.  The same goes for limbs, eyes, armor, and other equipment.  The average corporate thug is unlikely to be as well equipped or armed as group of cyberpunks, but the elite forces the likes of Arasaka and Militech ought to put most PCs to shame.  



CTPhipps said:


> Otherwise, you wouldn't have the corporations hiring mercenaries rather than using their own people who are by and large inferior to the Edgerunners who can command larger fees as well as do better as independent agents.



Edgerunners are a deniable asset and if they're neutralized then the company hasn't lost an asset.  Those are two good reasons why corporate interest might use them.  Even today, corporations use independent contractors.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 12, 2021)

Its also not actually uncommon for independent contractors to have more experience in a lot of fields than specific corporate employees in a wider variety of situations.  Lets face it, unless you're literally using them constantly, corporate security gets a lot less action than criminal contractor would.  There's probably a lot less of them, but that's a different issue.


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## MGibster (Dec 12, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Its also not actually uncommon for independent contractors to have more experience in a lot of fields than specific corporate employees in a wider variety of situations. Lets face it, unless you're literally using them constantly, corporate security gets a lot less action than criminal contractor would. There's probably a lot less of them, but that's a different issue.



That's fair.  Most of our independent contractors have skills and/or are assigned to tasks that our employees aren't good at or can't do.  And even if a corporation does have those assets, they might not be available when and where they're needed.  

Mid-Level Manager:  Who the hell do these clowns think they are?  If these Bozos think they can rip off SegAtari and get away with it they're going to be sorely disappointed.  Tell Nancy I need to requisition our repo team.  Ask for Sanchez, he's messy but gets results and I want to send a message.

Assistant:  I'm sorry, sir.  If you'll recall, Sanchez's team took heavy casualties in our, uh, misunderstanding with the 6th Street gang in Vista Del Ray.  

Mid-Level Manager:  Fine, how about Alex's team?  Alex isn't as brutal as I want, but they know how to get results and I have confidence in them.  

Assistant:  Their team is currently on another assignment for Wilson and...

Mid-Level Manger:  I'm not swinging a big enough stick to cross Wilson.  Could we get Reddy's team here? 

Assistant:  We could, but getting his entire team here in a timely manner would be, well, cost prohibitive.  If I might be so bold, sir?  We do have an outside resource who assisted us with smoothing over our relationship with the 6th Street gang.   No doubt he knows of some resourceful individuals who might assist us with the Bozos for a reasonable fee.  And we could pay this service fee using our discretionary funds.  The employees won't get any soy ham for Christmas this year, but to management it'll look like you took care of the problem without incurring any additional expenses.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 12, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> It's very much part of the setting's central conceit that the Street Stuff is far more advanced than anything used by Arasaka and the corporate thugs as a general rule. The whole point is that the mass produced garbage produced by the corporation is taken and improved by the geniuses and people who know the workarounds by those in the know. Otherwise, you wouldn't have the corporations hiring mercenaries rather than using their own people who are by and large inferior to the Edgerunners who can command larger fees as well as do better as independent agents.
> 
> The Corporations are at the mercy of each other and their own constant wars after all. Its very much a DIY setting.
> 
> At least that's my interpretation. It has an idealized view of the criminal underworld versus the man.



I get that it is part of the setting, but it is a part of the setting that does not work. Genius or not, the idea of a lone craftsman hunched over his workbench out-producing a factory line in both quality and output doesn't work. And his remaining unmolested yet publically-accessible likewise fails. 

As to why mercs are used, that reason is as old as war: why risk loyalists when you can use hired guns instead? Again, an age-old reason being played out today.

I really want to love Cyberpunk; back when it first came out I bought the entire product line. But the setting has not aged well, and the writers have not addressed the failing core issues. I had hoped that they would have moved the corps in a direction based upon drug cartel's ruthless securing of both economic and political power, coupled with the electronics industry's already mentioned design maneuvers.

I haven't given up hope, but Red is not going to be The One.


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## Blue Orange (Dec 12, 2021)

I guess the Rockerboys should be Hip-Hoppers now, eh? That actually is used all over the world by people for social criticism.

Maybe Pondsmith doesn't like rap?


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## MGibster (Dec 12, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> I get that it is part of the setting, but it is a part of the setting that does not work. Genius or not, the idea of a lone craftsman hunched over his workbench out-producing a factory line in both quality and output doesn't work. And his remaining unmolested yet publically-accessible likewise fails.



I don't actually think it's part of the setting, because, as you rightly point out, it makes no sense.  At least with William Gibson, the point wasn't that they produced higher quality goods on the streets, it was that on the streets they adapted the technology to suit their own purposes sometimes in ways the corps never imagined.  Like taking an Apple watch and running the original Doom game on it.  I could see a boutique producing very, very high quality equipment.  But these would be prohibitively expensive and their clients would be those who could afford it.  The wealthy or the most successful of edge runners.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 12, 2021)

MGibster said:


> I don't actually think it's part of the setting, because, as you rightly point out, it makes no sense.  At least with William Gibson, the point wasn't that they produced higher quality goods on the streets, it was that on the streets they adapted the technology to suit their own purposes sometimes in ways the corps never imagined.  Like taking an Apple watch and running the original Doom game on it.  I could see a boutique producing very, very high quality equipment.  But these would be prohibitively expensive and their clients would be those who could afford it.  The wealthy or the most successful of edge runners.



Gibson did CP right: the high-end gear was rare, and storied.


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## CTPhipps (Dec 13, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> I get that it is part of the setting, but it is a part of the setting that does not work. Genius or not, the idea of a lone craftsman hunched over his workbench out-producing a factory line in both quality and output doesn't work. And his remaining unmolested yet publically-accessible likewise fails.
> 
> As to why mercs are used, that reason is as old as war: why risk loyalists when you can use hired guns instead? Again, an age-old reason being played out today.
> 
> ...




I feel like if you addressed the issue then you'd start to seriously change what makes it cyberPUNK though because a major part of the setting is that technology is getting worse not better and regressing due to being not just dystopian but post-apocalypse in many respects. They eventually did update the setting to a much more science fiction-y and advanced setting but like Deus Ex: Invisible War this actually seriously messed with the setting's themes and appeal.

I mean part of it is the genre conceit. A Solo will kill dozens if not hundreds of professional soldiers and corporate mercenaries because they're Stormtroopers and you're Han Solo.

A TYPICAL SOLO ASSAULT ON ARASAKA


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## MGibster (Dec 13, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Gibson did CP right: the high-end gear was rare, and storied.



I didn't actually read _Neuromancer _until I was in my late twenties or early thirties many years after I had stopped playing _Cyberpunk 2020_.  (I didn't read _Lord of the Rings _until a few months before the first Peter Jackson movie was released.)  I was a bit surprised by how different the novel seemed to be from all those cyberpunk campaigns I played in as a team.  Compared to a Solo PC in 2020, Mollie Millions with her eyes, razor claws, and boosted reflexes would have been ill equipped for many campaigns.  

But then I don't think any of my campaigns played out like Mike Pondsmith might have run his campaign.  I remember one of the Cyberpunk 2020 books having an example character who was roughed up by the people he owed money to.  Especially in my teen years, the majority of players I gamed with would find it unacceptable for their PC to be roughed up in such a fashion.  Like D&D, Cyberpunk 2020 is an adolescent power fantasy for most.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 13, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> I mean part of it is the genre conceit. A Solo will kill dozens if not hundreds of professional soldiers and corporate mercenaries because they're Stormtroopers and you're Han Solo.



Its sad that that still crops up, whether in Hollywood or in too many games.


Edited after Mannahin's good point.


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## Mannahnin (Dec 13, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Its sad that that still crops up, whether in Hollywood or in games.



I'm fine with it in superheroic fantasy/space opera/wuxia.  IMO that Equilibrium scene misses the point of Cyberpunk, as a genre.  CP characters are human, and live hardscrabble lives. 

Even the best, nastiest mercs can't take on a bunch of competent opponents at the same time. (Edit: unless they're doing so with some clever plan- an ambush, bomb, EMP pulse to disable the antagonists, etc.)


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## CTPhipps (Dec 17, 2021)

Jd Smith1 said:


> Its sad that that still crops up, whether in Hollywood or in too many games.




Why is it sad?

Is there a reason you prefer realistic action versus fun action?


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## MGibster (Dec 17, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> Why is it sad?
> 
> Is there a reason you prefer realistic action versus fun action?



For me, I prefer Cyberpunk (the game) to be a bit grittier.  It's okay if a small force overwhelms a larger forces through guile and smart thinking.  But the kind of nonsense we see in the Matrix or Equilibrium isn't what I want to see my my Cyberpunk game.  Though I actually do enjoy that kind of nonsense in other games.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 17, 2021)

CTPhipps said:


> Why is it sad?
> 
> Is there a reason you prefer realistic action versus fun action?




I would describe it as realistic action versus silly action.


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## Jd Smith1 (Dec 18, 2021)

Man, conflicted emotions: Red is going live on Roll20 in January.


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## Ravenbrook (Dec 21, 2021)

Blue Orange said:


> I guess the Rockerboys should be Hip-Hoppers now, eh? That actually is used all over the world by people for social criticism.
> 
> Maybe Pondsmith doesn't like rap?



If I were to play in a Cyberpunk game I would probably totally subvert the genre by forming an overly cute Japanese boy band:


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## MGibster (Dec 21, 2021)

Ravenbrook said:


> If I were to play in a Cyberpunk game I would probably totally subvert the genre by forming an overly cute Japanese boy band:



On of the NPC rocker boys in the campaign I’m working on is a politician.  A member of the Night City city council.


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## aramis erak (Dec 25, 2021)

Grendel_Khan said:


> "Rockerboy" as a class in CP2020 made my skeleton cringe out of my body when the game first published. That they kept that name in Red is just wild, and indicative of how little they actually wanted to update, and how set they were on leaning into nostalgiapunk.
> 
> I don't have an issue with the character option itself, and I agree with @BrokenTwin--the game basically provides the framework to support a band campaign. But boy oh boy, Rockerboy....



I generated a (totally legal) rockerboy with a high Charismatic Leadership. I was to make a distraction so they could get in and out on the job. I instead shutdown a large portion of the nearby area with a live concert... I open-ended, sing +8 and Cha. Leadership +8, so was over 30 final total... GM ruled it an overkill. Rest of the group ruled it "disruptive play"... and overrode the GM's invite.
I don't know anyone else who played a rockerboy. (I was majoring in vocal performance at the time; essentially, opera. So it wasn't a stretch for me.)


----------



## Thomas Shey (Dec 25, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> I generated a (totally legal) rockerboy with a high Charismatic Leadership. I was to make a distraction so they could get in and out on the job. I instead shutdown a large portion of the nearby area with a live concert... I open-ended, sing +8 and Cha. Leadership +8, so was over 30 final total... GM ruled it an overkill. Rest of the group ruled it "disruptive play"... and overrode the GM's invite.
> I don't know anyone else who played a rockerboy. (I was majoring in vocal performance at the time; essentially, opera. So it wasn't a stretch for me.)




If I had to guess, I'd suspect instead of reading it as a clever way to leverage a type that often is difficult to fit into the usual cyberpunk caper-based play, they read it as making the game all about you.  People have seen enough of that in their gaming lives they're prone to jumping at even the appearance of it.


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## MGibster (Dec 25, 2021)

It does seem to me that rabble rousing is one of the prime abilities of a Rocker Boy.  It even features heavily in Johnny Silverhand's story with how he caused a distraction to get into Arasaka.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 25, 2021)

MGibster said:


> It does seem to me that rabble rousing is one of the prime abilities of a Rocker Boy.  It even features heavily in Johnny Silverhand's story with how he caused a distraction to get into Arasaka.




Well, its hard to see how the Rockerboy special ability was going to be useful for much else.


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## MGibster (Dec 25, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, its hard to see how the Rockerboy special ability was going to be useful for much else.



You're right.  Now that I read the Charismatic Leadership ability you're right.  And that's probably another reason I never saw anyone actually play a Rocker Boy.  Their main ability is only useful in a very narrow set of circumstances.


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## billd91 (Dec 26, 2021)

MGibster said:


> You're right.  Now that I read the Charismatic Leadership ability you're right.  And that's probably another reason I never saw anyone actually play a Rocker Boy.  Their main ability is only useful in a very narrow set of circumstances.



Some abilities are pretty general and useful for the special ops team/murder hobo equivalents in Cyberpunk, but not every campaign has to be like that. The rocker boy archetype could be the core of a particular type of campaign.


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## Blue Orange (Dec 26, 2021)

The next version should have references to the bugs in the computer game.


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## MGibster (Dec 26, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Some abilities are pretty general and useful for the special ops team/murder hobo equivalents in Cyberpunk, but not every campaign has to be like that. The rocker boy archetype could be the core of a particular type of campaign.



I'm thinking of that Simpson's parody of Knight Rider with the Kitt character as a boat instead of a car.  Bart say something like, "There's always a inlet, an estuary, or something allowing the boat to go after criminals inland."  And then during the episode some bad guys head inland and the David Hasselhoff equivalent says, "Look, there's an estuary!"  

I kind of think of the Rockerboy ability like that.  Each session, contriving some reason for them to start a riot or something.  It'd get tedious I think.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 26, 2021)

MGibster said:


> You're right.  Now that I read the Charismatic Leadership ability you're right.  And that's probably another reason I never saw anyone actually play a Rocker Boy.  Their main ability is only useful in a very narrow set of circumstances.




That was an issue with a couple of them.  As I recall, Corp was more broad, but still excluded by a lot of situations.  On the other hand, there were going to be a very limited number of games the Solo ability of the Netrunner (unless the GM just decided the mini-game was not something he was going to mess with any more) weren't going to be relevant.


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## Thomas Shey (Dec 26, 2021)

billd91 said:


> Some abilities are pretty general and useful for the special ops team/murder hobo equivalents in Cyberpunk, but not every campaign has to be like that. The rocker boy archetype could be the core of a particular type of campaign.




That's the problem, though; in campaigns where his ability is consistently relevant, its going to constantly orbit around him.  Most of what he's doing no one else is going to help with.  Its the Netrunner problem, except potentially worse.


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## MGibster (Dec 26, 2021)

Thomas Shey said:


> That was an issue with a couple of them. As I recall, Corp was more broad, but still excluded by a lot of situations. On the other hand, there were going to be a very limited number of games the Solo ability of the Netrunner (unless the GM just decided the mini-game was not something he was going to mess with any more) weren't going to be relevant.



Cyberpunk 2020 had a lot of niggling problems with many of the skills.  The Corporate's Resource ability was very, very broad giving a player access to vehicles, a hit team, cash, and other specialist as needed.  The biggest limit I think is that you can't use Resource to fix an immediate situation (most of the time).  i.e.  If you're ambushed by a poser gang you can't just make a Resource roll to bring in a corporate hit squad because by the time they show up you're probably already oozing life.  



Thomas Shey said:


> That's the problem, though; in campaigns where his ability is consistently relevant, its going to constantly orbit around him. Most of what he's doing no one else is going to help with. Its the Netrunner problem, except potentially worse.



Even aside from revolving everything around that one ability being a problem for every other player, it'd just get old.  We all know celebrities get special treatment.  They get access to things or they get freebies just because people like them.  So why not allow their ability to be used in their day-to-day lives?  The security guard is a huge fan of Trinity's Child and let's her into the scrapyard just so long as she promises to keep a low profile and give him an autograph.  Or maybe one of Trinity's fans knows a guy who knows a guy who specializes in data analytics who can sift through those Militech files that fell in her lap


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## MGibster (Dec 26, 2021)

I'm honestly still on the fence trying to figure out how I can fit a Rockerboy into my (as of yet unrealized) campaign.  It revolves around a heist and then dealing with the ramifications of the heist.  During session zero I'll just need to talk to everyone and work out the best way I can fit every class into the campaign.  I was against Corporate and Law Dog types, but if the players are willing to play ball I'll be flexible as well.


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## MGibster (Dec 27, 2021)

So I just bought the Cyberpunk Humble Bundle and it came with _Rockerboy, _a sourcebook on Rockerboys and Media.  In the introduction it says: 



			
				Rockerboy said:
			
		

> Since its conception, Cyberpunk has generated a lot of questions in several areas.  One of these has been, "How do I incorporate my Rockerboy into a campaign without focusing all the events on him/her?"




So I'm going to read this and see if it offers us any suggestions.


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## MGibster (Dec 27, 2021)

So after reading a bit of _Rockerboy_, they have an "interview" with Kerry Eurodyne where he recalls an incident where the lead singer of an Afro-Punk band makes some offhanded comments at a restaurant where journalist overheard it and suddenly it was plastered all over the news and his followers were trying to interview them.  I think allowing the Rockerboy to use their ability outside of an actual performance is fair.  Reading that fake article made me think of a certain political leader whose followers latch on to throw away statements he makes adopting them as gospel and incorporating them into their lives despite what experts might say.


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## MGibster (Dec 27, 2021)

And, holy cow.  An RPG book published in 1989 has an section titled "Hitler was a Rockerboy" and right after that another "interview" with a lesbian satirist named Maz Despair on the run from Texas after being framed for the murder of a politician.  In *1989*, folks!  And holy cow, it's eerily accurate about the fate of gay clubs due to mainstream acceptance:



			
				Maz Despair 1989 said:
			
		

> With this sudden openness, I would have expected to see a multitude of gay oriented places opening up, but the infusion was so widespread, they just assimilated into society and people just did their business as usual.




Sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into a "Let's Read" thread.


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## aramis erak (Dec 29, 2021)

MGibster said:


> You're right.  Now that I read the Charismatic Leadership ability you're right.  And that's probably another reason I never saw anyone actually play a Rocker Boy.  Their main ability is only useful in a very narrow set of circumstances.



No, it's WIDELY useful... but only _at a distance from the other players._ It takes the character away from the op, in favor of enabling success.
I was good sitting out during the op. They wanted me to play firepower, not before-and-after distraction.


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## MGibster (Dec 29, 2021)

aramis erak said:


> No, it's WIDELY useful... but only _at a distance from the other players._ It takes the character away from the op, in favor of enabling success.



I think part of the problem is simply with the description of the skill in 2020.  In the book, the only example we really get is of a Rockerboy using the ability to incite the crowd to riot and he's got to do that while performing.  But back when 2020 was published, 1990 or 1991, I hadn't thought of all the other things a Rockerboy could do.  He could encourage his fans to donate some euros to help starving Nomad families (Live Aid) or help out independent agra families (Farm Aid), encourage his fans to dox someone, or, hell, maybe the Rockerboy could make a little extra scratch by acting like an influencer and hawking a particular brand of water.  

I do think the Red's Charismatic Impact is more flexible in that it's specifically designed to work on one person or more people while the 2020 version only works on 10 or more people.  In addition, the Red version allows the Rockerboy to create _more _fans by successful using the skill.


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## Saracenus (Jan 2, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I can't recall ever playing a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign with someone playing a Rockerboy.  Which is somewhat odd because Johnny Silverhand was one of what we'd call iconic characters from the book along the likes of Rogue, Armitage, and Blackhand.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever saw someone play a Media either.  I don't know if it was because of a lack of interest or people just didn't know how to fit them into the game.  Anyone here have trouble with any of the roles?  If I ever get my next campaign up and running, I'm probably going to ask players to avoid making Lawmen and Corporates though I might be able to make the latter work.
> 
> Anyone remember _Interface_ magazine?  They had a license to published Cyberpunk 2020 information and each issue had things like cybernetics, police profiles of gangs/individuals, new drugs, corporations, etc., etc. you could introduce to your game.  They even had movie and book reviews including _Street Lethal _and _Highlander 2.   _There were only six issues published between 1991 and 1992, but, wow, they left quite an impression on me.  I had to include Spider Lady, a ripper doc feature in issue two in 1991, as an NPC in my upcoming campaign.
> 
> ...



I have 5 all 6 issues still. Interface was an interesting fanzine.





Do you remember the 3rd party Vampire CP2020 supplement? Found it, *Night's Edge*.

As for a modern game system to run CP20XX in, if you want a more story driven game the I can suggest *The Sprawl* powered by the Apocalypse Engine.



> Glide through the most secure corporate computer networks. Crack the ICE that stands between you and that big score.
> 
> Drop your cyberlinked autoshotgun to the floor empty. Flick chrome blades from your fingers. Dive into the midst of that corporate response team to secure your team’s exit.
> 
> ...


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## MGibster (Jan 2, 2022)

Saracenus said:


> Do you remember the 3rd party Vampire CP2020 supplement? Found it, *Night's Edge*.



It's been almost 30 years, I don't know if I just barely remember it or I'm getting it mixed up with the Interface issue about cults or GURPS Cyberpunk where they mention mixing things up with Cthulhu.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 2, 2022)

I think I have all those including Night's Edge.  Somewhere.


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## Blue Orange (Jan 3, 2022)

MGibster said:


> It's been almost 30 years, I don't know if I just barely remember it or I'm getting it mixed up with the Interface issue about cults or GURPS Cyberpunk where they mention mixing things up with Cthulhu.




There was an actual GURPS Cthulhupunk supplement. I remember reading it in the 90s.


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## MGibster (Jan 3, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> I think I have all those including Night's Edge. Somewhere.



I really wish they were available in PDF.


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## aramis erak (Jan 3, 2022)

One of the great problems with Cyberpunk as a game is the varied expectations of the setting by the players...
Merc action like _Hard Wired_? Decking l;ike _Neuromancer_? Posthumanism like _Armor_? New eemergent subpopulations like in _Gundam_? Superdrugs like a dozen short stories? Genentic creations like _Blade Runner_/_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ Surgical  alters and genetic mods, so you wind up with a protagonist looking like Tony the Tiger and a built in brainmod? Or the whole kit and cabooddle as an incoherent mess?

_Interface _was no help on that score... it only supported a small subset of the genre spread of the CP2013 or CP2020 rules.


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## MGibster (Jan 3, 2022)

aramis erak said:


> One of the great problems with Cyberpunk as a game is the varied expectations of the setting by the players...
> Merc action like _Hard Wired_? Decking l;ike _Neuromancer_? Posthumanism like _Armor_? New eemergent subpopulations like in _Gundam_? Superdrugs like a dozen short stories? Genentic creations like _Blade Runner_/_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ Surgical alters and genetic mods, so you wind up with a protagonist looking like Tony the Tiger and a built in brainmod? Or the whole kit and cabooddle as an incoherent mess?



I didn't read anything by William Gibson until I was in my early 30s and long after I had last played any Cyberpunk.  I was a little surprised by how different my Cyberpunk experience was compared to _Neuromancer_, _Count Zero, _and _Mona Lisa Overdrive.  _I suppose it's similar to how someone who had never read _Lord of the Rings _until after they played AD&D for a few years.  Though I did read _Hardwired_ by Walter Jon Williams and _Street Lethal _by Steven Barnes.  I still remember my confusion as to who was supposed to be on the cover illustration of _Street Lethal_.  The protagonist is an African American but there was a musclebound white dude on the cover of the copy I had.

So I didn't suffer from those expectations at the time because I really didn't have a lot of experience with cyberpunk as a genre.  But, yeah, I get it where you're coming from now.   



aramis erak said:


> _Interface _was no help on that score... it only supported a small subset of the genre spread of the CP2013 or CP2020 rules.



Looking back, I think of 2013 and 2020 and their own thing in the same way that D&D is its own thing.  Inspired by multiple sources but not really emulating most of the literature that inspired it.


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## Saracenus (Jan 3, 2022)

MGibster said:


> It's been almost 30 years, I don't know if I just barely remember it or I'm getting it mixed up with the Interface issue about cults or GURPS Cyberpunk where they mention mixing things up with Cthulhu.



Interface Issue 2, Vol. 2 was all about a Cthulhu/Cyberpunk 2020 mash up they called The Darktime or CyberCthulhu.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jan 3, 2022)

aramis erak said:


> One of the great problems with Cyberpunk as a game is the varied expectations of the setting by the players...
> Merc action like _Hard Wired_? Decking l;ike _Neuromancer_? Posthumanism like _Armor_? New eemergent subpopulations like in _Gundam_? Superdrugs like a dozen short stories? Genentic creations like _Blade Runner_/_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ Surgical  alters and genetic mods, so you wind up with a protagonist looking like Tony the Tiger and a built in brainmod? Or the whole kit and cabooddle as an incoherent mess?
> 
> _Interface _was no help on that score... it only supported a small subset of the genre spread of the CP2013 or CP2020 rules.




CP shares a great weakness with 5e: it is all about the gear. Magic items or cyber implants, the focus is on hardware, whereas the king of the written genre, Gibson, focused upon the people. That has always been my stumbling block: I read LotR before D&D, and Gibson before CP.


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## MGibster (Jan 3, 2022)

I wish there were mechanics in Cyberpunk Red for a character's reputation.  "Uh, actually MGibster, Reputation can be gained or loss through the characters' actions.  And, you're right, but what I would have liked to see was some sort of social currency introduced.  As it stands, there's a lot of pressure to make end's meet so they can keep on paying for that shipping container, those fancy threads, and that new Kawasaki Blitzkrieg motorcycle they've had their eye on.   Which is fine.  There's a reason these people became cyberpunks in the first place.  

What I'd like is some mechanical support encouraging PCs to be a little less mercenary at times.  One of the best things about Cyberpunk 2077 are the relationships V has with other people such as Jackie Wells, Viktor Vektor, Judy Alvarez, and others.  He wasn't always motivated by money.  I know as the GM I can just reward players with new contacts, discounts, and assistance from NPCs, I just would have liked some mechanics for it.


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## gamerprinter (Jan 3, 2022)

While I do play sci-fi, was never really a cyberpunk fan... that said, the publisher had purchased my Flying Cars map object set I sell at DrivethruRPG, and contacted me, asking if he could use one of the flying cars and a flying bike from that set to include as cardboard pawns in the Cyberpunk Red Starter Kit. So while I've never played their game, I did contribute something directly, by invitation, and got a free starter kit!


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## CubicsRube (Jan 3, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I wish there were mechanics in Cyberpunk Red for a character's reputation.  "Uh, actually MGibster, Reputation can be gained or loss through the characters' actions.  And, you're right, but what I would have liked to see was some sort of social currency introduced.  As it stands, there's a lot of pressure to make end's meet so they can keep on paying for that shipping container, those fancy threads, and that new Kawasaki Blitzkrieg motorcycle they've had their eye on.   Which is fine.  There's a reason these people became cyberpunks in the first place.
> 
> What I'd like is some mechanical support encouraging PCs to be a little less mercenary at times.  One of the best things about Cyberpunk 2077 are the relationships V has with other people such as Jackie Wells, Viktor Vektor, Judy Alvarez, and others.  He wasn't always motivated by money.  I know as the GM I can just reward players with new contacts, discounts, and assistance from NPCs, I just would have liked some mechanics for it.



This is something I thought Shadowrun 5e did well although it was unfortunately most often lost behind all the sub-systems going on.

You could spend Karma/XP on contacts based on their influence in society and their loyalty to you.

It was a great and simple way to quantify useful connections and tied you to the world more. You could be the guy that kinda knows a bunch of people, or maybe you k ow just a couple of people, but one of them is very high up in the chain.

It also embeds a social network with the characters as those some contacts can be used to give jobs and ask favours for the PCs, or they can be put in peril. You could make a whole campaign on that.


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## MGibster (Jan 4, 2022)

Jd Smith1 said:


> CP shares a great weakness with 5e: it is all about the gear. Magic items or cyber implants, the focus is on hardware, whereas the king of the written genre, Gibson, focused upon the people. That has always been my stumbling block: I read LotR before D&D, and Gibson before CP.



I was surprised by how little cyberware Mollie had.  At least in Cyberpunk Red, they kind of acknowledge that that the PCs are somewhat shallow caring more for style over substance.  But where's that supported in the mechanics?  Is there any reason for my players to have their characters spend their hard earned euros living like rock stars instead of dumping it all into better armor, weapons, and cyber gear?  If they're successful enough to live well they should probably get some benefit from that.  If they live in some tiny shipping container in the combat zone, maybe they don't get as many good jobs.  If they were any good they wouldn't be dressing like bums and living in a crummy neighborhood.


CubicsRube said:


> It was a great and simple way to quantify useful connections and tied you to the world more. You could be the guy that kinda knows a bunch of people, or maybe you k ow just a couple of people, but one of them is very high up in the chain.



I think I'm just going to assume that the PCs know people based in part on their skill.  For example, if they have decent ranks in martial arts, odds are good that they practice regularly and know other martial artists.  These contacts might not go out on a limb for the PC, but they might be able to make use of them in some way.  "Yeah, I know a guy who can get you the type of sword you want.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jan 4, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I was surprised by how little cyberware Mollie had.  At least in Cyberpunk Red, they kind of acknowledge that that the PCs are somewhat shallow caring more for style over substance.  But where's that supported in the mechanics?  Is there any reason for my players to have their characters spend their hard earned euros living like rock stars instead of dumping it all into better armor, weapons, and cyber gear?  If they're successful enough to live well they should probably get some benefit from that.  If they live in some tiny shipping container in the combat zone, maybe they don't get as many good jobs.  If they were any good they wouldn't be dressing like bums and living in a crummy neighborhood.



That, in a nutshell, is what my issue with CP is: there is nothing in the setting or mechanics to counter what you have just described. There is no reason that the PCs, who make big bucks ripping off powerful people, should not live lives of conspicuous consumer consumption.

As a GM, my first thought is: why are the powerful people whose losses are fueling said lifestyle not taking the golden opportunity of such highly visible targets to extract revenge?

A key point of Gibson's work often revolved around the face that in his setting, much like the real world, getting the big payday was only the middle of an operation; surviving to enjoy it was as much a concern as getting it.

CP seems to be based on the concept of evil but basically powerless corporations at the mercy of the PCs


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## CubicsRube (Jan 4, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I think I'm just going to assume that the PCs know people based in part on their skill.  For example, if they have decent ranks in martial arts, odds are good that they practice regularly and know other martial artists.  These contacts might not go out on a limb for the PC, but they might be able to make use of them in some way.  "Yeah, I know a guy who can get you the type of sword you want.



You do you.

I like the 5e system because i could have a samurai who knows and is known to a tonne of club owners superficially and another who is really close to a high level corpo and the two would have a different feel to me, different capabilities and different motivations.

I find myself gravitating towards social networks in games now and I encourage my pcs to outline at least one NPC they know. It tells me a lot about the kind of game they want to play.

At least it works for me.


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## CubicsRube (Jan 4, 2022)

Jd Smith1 said:


> That, in a nutshell, is what my issue with CP is: there is nothing in the setting or mechanics to counter what you have just described. There is no reason that the PCs, who make big bucks ripping off powerful people, should not live lives of conspicuous consumer consumption.
> 
> As a GM, my first thought is: why are the powerful people whose losses are fueling said lifestyle not taking the golden opportunity of such highly visible targets to extract revenge?
> 
> ...



I've got The Sprawl on my bucket list to run. One thing in particular I like is that you create the megacorps as you go along with your character.

Have top end gear or cyberware? Chances are you owe a corpo big time, or at the least they are looking for whoever "liberated" their stuff.

Every job you do almost inevitably ticks a progress clock towards one corpo or another into turning you into their #1 enemy.

There looks like a constant trade off of ability and gear vs corpo opposition that feels cyberpunk to me - you either scum on by in life or you try to burn bright short in this life - i hope that's what it's like in play.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 4, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I was surprised by how little cyberware Mollie had.  At least in Cyberpunk Red, they kind of acknowledge that that the PCs are somewhat shallow caring more for style over substance.  But where's that supported in the mechanics?  Is there any reason for my players to have their characters spend their hard earned euros living like rock stars instead of dumping it all into better armor, weapons, and cyber gear?  If they're successful enough to live well they should probably get some benefit from that.  If they live in some tiny shipping container in the combat zone, maybe they don't get as many good jobs.  If they were any good they wouldn't be dressing like bums and living in a crummy neighborhood.




This is true of adventuring PCs in a lot of settings, though; for players its always easier to pump everything back into tools to keep them alive and successful (which is very visible on a player level) than stuff that makes what they're doing worthwhile.  Even if you abstract it into "lifestyle", you'll have a tendency for people to lowball it.  I'm not sure in the end there's much to do about it; maybe just tell people that you assume they're spending some on it and that the rewards you give out are only about the part they'll reinvest in gear, give out less, and move on, but even that might get pushback.


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## MGibster (Jan 5, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> This is true of adventuring PCs in a lot of settings, though; for players its always easier to pump everything back into tools to keep them alive and successful (which is very visible on a player level) than stuff that makes what they're doing worthwhile. Even if you abstract it into "lifestyle", you'll have a tendency for people to lowball it. I'm not sure in the end there's much to do about it; maybe just tell people that you assume they're spending some on it and that the rewards you give out are only about the part they'll reinvest in gear, give out less, and move on, but even that might get pushback.



And to be fair, the G in RPG stands for game.  It makes sense for a player to focus on what makes their character more effective when it comes to playing the game.  And if a fancy car, sweet threads, and a Mr. Studd isn't going to accomplish that then I can't really fault them for not opting for those.


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## MGibster (Jan 5, 2022)

Jd Smith1 said:


> That, in a nutshell, is what my issue with CP is: there is nothing in the setting or mechanics to counter what you have just described. There is no reason that the PCs, who make big bucks ripping off powerful people, should not live lives of conspicuous consumer consumption.



In some of the source material for 2020, I think they mention Arasaka has a reputation for going after Edgerunners who hit their facilities.  And I think in just about every cyberpunk type game I've played, there has been a problem in how much jobs pay versus the risk.  Earlier editions of Shadowrun were particularly egregious from what I can recall.  It's true that in real life criminals aren't very good at risk/reward analysis and they get put away for many years for crimes that wouldn't have netted them all that much cash.  But the PCs are supposed to be professionals.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jan 5, 2022)

MGibster said:


> In some of the source material for 2020, I think they mention Arasaka has a reputation for going after Edgerunners who hit their facilities.  And I think in just about every cyberpunk type game I've played, there has been a problem in how much jobs pay versus the risk.  Earlier editions of Shadowrun were particularly egregious from what I can recall.  It's true that in real life criminals aren't very good at risk/reward analysis and they get put away for many years for crimes that wouldn't have netted them all that much cash.  But the PCs are supposed to be professionals.



What I meant was that conspicuous consumption made it easy for the PCs to be found, and retaliated against.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 5, 2022)

MGibster said:


> And to be fair, the G in RPG stands for game.  It makes sense for a player to focus on what makes their character more effective when it comes to playing the game.  And if a fancy car, sweet threads, and a Mr. Studd isn't going to accomplish that then I can't really fault them for not opting for those.




Yeah.  Its a place where the game elements of the experience work against the role-playing elements, and people shouldn't be surprised that the former often wins.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 5, 2022)

MGibster said:


> In some of the source material for 2020, I think they mention Arasaka has a reputation for going after Edgerunners who hit their facilities.  And I think in just about every cyberpunk type game I've played, there has been a problem in how much jobs pay versus the risk.  Earlier editions of Shadowrun were particularly egregious from what I can recall.  It's true that in real life criminals aren't very good at risk/reward analysis and they get put away for many years for crimes that wouldn't have netted them all that much cash.  But the PCs are supposed to be professionals.




Some of the criminals that do that are professionals, too, and still do it.  Look at the case of professional bank robbers.

In cyberpunk settings, you can write some of it off to "My alternative is working for the worst incarnations of The Man, and **** that!" in at least a lot of cases.

(Though there's a conceit that the degree of effort most corps put into chasing down edgerunners and their kin is constrained by the fact they also want to use their services when convenient; in other words that the whole edgerunner culture is, in the end, part of the corporate ecology even if its not acknowledged as such).


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## MGibster (Jan 5, 2022)

Thomas Shey said:


> Yeah. Its a place where the game elements of the experience work against the role-playing elements, and people shouldn't be surprised that the former often wins.



I really prefer it when creators include mechanics supporting whatever style they're aiming for.  If the game emphasizes style over substance then make sure you include mechanics that rewards players for living the life.  



Thomas Shey said:


> In cyberpunk settings, you can write some of it off to "My alternative is working for the worst incarnations of The Man, and **** that!" in at least a lot of cases.



In so many settings, Shadowrun especially, the PCs really just end up doing the bidding of the corporations.  i.e. While they end up hurting the interest of one corporation, they're often doing so for the benefit of another corporation.


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## Thomas Shey (Jan 5, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I really prefer it when creators include mechanics supporting whatever style they're aiming for.  If the game emphasizes style over substance then make sure you include mechanics that rewards players for living the life.




Can't disagree.



MGibster said:


> In so many settings, Shadowrun especially, the PCs really just end up doing the bidding of the corporations.  i.e. While they end up hurting the interest of one corporation, they're often doing so for the benefit of another corporation.




Yeah, but there's two things here:

1. First off, not all of them think it that far through; they just know they can be their own man or directly work for a corp (or a government); there's not much other use for their skills.

2. There's always the view that when you're being the villain's knife, you're still stabbing another villain, and on the whole expediting that sort of thing is better than them just letting those groups come to a mutual aggreement.


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## aramis erak (Jan 10, 2022)

aramis erak said:


> One of the great problems with Cyberpunk as a game is the varied expectations of the setting by the players...
> Merc action like _Hard Wired_? Decking l;ike _Neuromancer_? Posthumanism like _Armor_? New eemergent subpopulations like in _Gundam_? Superdrugs like a dozen short stories? Genentic creations like _Blade Runner_/_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ Surgical  alters and genetic mods, so you wind up with a protagonist looking like Tony the Tiger and a built in brainmod? Or the whole kit and cabooddle as an incoherent mess?
> 
> _Interface _was no help on that score... it only supported a small subset of the genre spread of the CP2013 or CP2020 rules.






MGibster said:


> Looking back, I think of 2013 and 2020 and their own thing in the same way that D&D is its own thing.  Inspired by multiple sources but not really emulating most of the literature that inspired it.



I agree, the game grew into it's own subgenre. As did shadowrun.
And not quite the same ones.

Still, the expectations can ruin the experience. 



Jd Smith1 said:


> CP shares a great weakness with 5e: it is all about the gear. Magic items or cyber implants, the focus is on hardware, whereas the king of the written genre, Gibson, focused upon the people. That has always been my stumbling block: I read LotR before D&D, and Gibson before CP.



D&D 5E is far less about the gear than CP2020 is.


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## Jd Smith1 (Jan 10, 2022)

aramis erak said:


> D&D 5E is far less about the gear than CP2020 is.



True, but D&D players seem, at least IME, to be loot-crazy. One of the things I definitely like about 5e is the limited number of attuned items.


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## MGibster (Sep 18, 2022)

So I watched the Netflix series _Cyberpunk:  Edgerunner _which is more based off the Cyberpunk 2077 computer game than it is _Cyberpunk Red_.  If I played the computer game and watched the series, I'd have some serious cognative dissonance if I were to walk into _Cyberpunk Red _expecting it to be the same.  Without spoiling the series, I'd say they got the general feeling of Cyberpunk right.  There aren't many old edge runners filling up retirement homes if you know what I mean.  It's an anime though, and I often dislike the way violence is portrayed in anime.  Oh, I don't mind the blood and the guts, but the over-the-top nature of the action kind of takes me out of the moment.  The feats characters would perform with cybernetics seemed more appropriate for a Marvel movie than cyberpunk. 

I did think they had an interesting take on cyberpsychosis.  It wasn't just the cybernetics that caused problems, stress would exacerbate whatever issues they were having with their cyberware.  Humanity loss wasn't limited to the hardware you had installed, it was also driven by what you did for a living.  This isn't something I've really seen addressed in most Cyberpunk games.  _Red _pays some lip service to it by giving you options to lower Humanity, but it's a footnote rather than an integral part of the game.


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