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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GnomePirate

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    Default Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Has anyone played this and complexity wise how does it compare to Shadowrun and its complexity just to be more complex because why not?
    -How is combat?
    -Is netrunning a completely separate game like it is in Shadowrun(to the point I banned deckers and the like since the rest of the party literally had nothing to do for hours)
    -While I am not a huge fan of pre-made adventures, is there any word on expansions and if they are going to be doing them and pre-published?
    -Vehicle combat fairly straight forward or is it another slog?
    PCs are not exceptional. They are normal Joe Shmoes stuck in exceptional circumstances.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DwarfClericGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    I've played through a campaign of RED. We used the stock characters included with the starter kit. I played the heavy, "Mover".

    It's a pretty simple system, which makes it easy to spike on the one or two things you want your character to specialize in. Stat of 1-10. Skill score. Roll (stat + skill) against target number.

    I don't know if the system itself calls for it (I didn't play a hacker). But the hacking in our campaign was "on site" and done in conjunction with enocounters the rest of the party was having. So we didn't have the problem where the hacker is "back at home" while we were doing our business.

    It does have the typical problem with most Cyberpunk RPGs. There's clearly a best armor, a best gun, a best melee weapon. There is little reason to ever not just fire in full auto. And it's hard to justify every character not using all of them - resulting in a group that looks more like a military unit than a group of misfits. Using the same weapons and the same fire modes and tactics for every encounter - unless you want to be purposefully sub-optimal for the sake of story.

    There are some odd quirks to the death system that can result in a head-shot NPC continuing to fire at the PCs while bleeding out.

    The system is also not exactly complete. It is a very fun intro as starter-kits go. It's got enough for a few one-shots. But it needs more rules to handle wealth, advancement, the social aspect of the game, etc.

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GnomePirate

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    I posted on the cyberpunk genre campaign posting. I find it hard to come up with a long term campaign based in cyberpunk. Eequipment isn't as much the issue as its just the same scenario over and over. The PC game has the same issue if you just go and do the NCPD encounters over and over like many of us do in the early game. Go to the scene, figure out the best covered spot and engage, loot bodies and every Chinese food carton on the scene, hop on the stolen bike to the next one. On tabletop there is always a way to spice things up. Have NPCs act intelligently and use actual tactics, throw in some GM created equipment and so forth. This doesn't solve the overall issue though of sameness.

    Its really hard to create the feel of it. I posted an example of being on a Trauma Team and going through that as a campaign. Makes the battles a little more interesting and PCs delve into the corporation they work for looking for a rat. Shadowrun at least adds in the magic aspect and I am wondering if anyone has tried Shadowrun using the Cyberpunk 2077 Red rules system. I am not very familiar with the rules but from what I have heard, they are much simpler than Shadowrun's. Shadowrun is my all time favorite universe but the rules slog is horrific especially in the later editions. Most companies choose to streamline their rules, Catalyst has managed to keep rules in BattleTech much the same as they have been for 30 years, but for some reason when they did Shadowrun 6E, that meme of the board meeting and the guy who suggested they make rules simple getting tossed out the window pops into my head.

    Essentially you have to make doing one shots interesting in the long term. I think of villains like Top Dollar from The Crow and how he would fit into this world and would he be providing jobs or having the PCs go against him? Would doing jobs for him get old or how do you have the PCs on their own go against him instead of simply moving elsewhere?

    I bought the book but haven't had a chance yet to read more than the basic character templates. It appears that everyone can do everything based on skills with the templates having an extra power based on their level(?).
    PCs are not exceptional. They are normal Joe Shmoes stuck in exceptional circumstances.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Haven't tried the new rules yet, though I have read them.

    I played the CP2020 rules a lot. As in for many years. There were issued with it (which we solved with houserules) but it was still a good system. The new system has fixed some of them. Being able to multi-role for starters. And the new character creation system, is very nice, especially with the various roles having been fleshed out with far more options as well. (Previously nomad was really just a poor man's solo, now it can do some cool stuff.)

    The setting is 2045 - its sort of a bridge between the 2020 rules and the 2077 game, while ignoring cybergeneration which was not really well received.

    Combat is pretty much don't get shot. Especially not in the head. Fights can be over fast, which is as it should be when guns are in play. Armour has been toned down a bit from the last ed, where it was ludicrously simple to walk through anything but heavy weapons fire, rendering 95% of weapons irrelevant. It looks like most guns can still be a threat.

    Netrunning has had a complete overhaul. It used to be like in shadowrun were they were playing a different game. Now they have to be onsite to run a system due to rabid ai ruining the 'net (curse you Rache Battmoss). The new running rules look a lot faster too, so no more sitting around for half an hour waiting for the runner to do his stuff.

    Haven't looked at the vehicle rules much yet, but they were clunky in the previous ed. Seems like they've had a play with them too.

    So far all there is is the core rulebook, but if it is like the previous ed then there will be a LOT of supplements to come, including an awful lot of world building. The 2020 world building was really good and I can see from the hints provided in the new RED rules that it promises to continue that way.

    The rules themselves aren't too complex and are fairly easily adapted - I actually ran a fantasy game based off the CP2020 rules and a friend did an X-COM game the same way.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GnomePirate

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    That's exactly the in depth info I was looking for. CP definitely seems far grittier than SR which since I started playing SR with my brother back in the late 80s, I still have that 80s glam rock image overlay on it when I think about it.
    PCs are not exceptional. They are normal Joe Shmoes stuck in exceptional circumstances.

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DwarfClericGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    CyberPunk seems to want to "have it's Glam Rock and eat it, too."

    There's a RockerBoy class. But there is jack-all to do with the class in the starter box. And it doesn't fit well with going out on missions. "We'll take the cyber security expert, the getaway driver, the sniper, ...aaaand the guitar player."
    Last edited by Democratus; 2021-04-23 at 10:17 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    GnomePirate

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    I haven't looked at the starter set and just picked up the book. From what I have read, there is definitely more to the Rocker Boy than a guitar player. I actually dislike the name since it really doesn't entirely describe the class(?) well. More of a charismatic face type character. But even with the guitar player archetype we have Eric Draven, the dude from Desperado, and Johnny Silverhands from the game, plus in real life my machine gunner in one of my squads in the army was the bassist in a local punk rock band. Gamewise, I think the template/class just has an ability which improves as you level, your skills( I believe) are agnostic to the template. Otherwise there wouldn't be much a point to playing a corporate exec or a fixer either(not sure if they were in the starter)
    PCs are not exceptional. They are normal Joe Shmoes stuck in exceptional circumstances.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Quote Originally Posted by Democratus View Post
    CyberPunk seems to want to "have it's Glam Rock and eat it, too."

    There's a RockerBoy class. But there is jack-all to do with the class in the starter box. And it doesn't fit well with going out on missions. "We'll take the cyber security expert, the getaway driver, the sniper, ...aaaand the guitar player."
    Rocker is now the social media player (along with the reporter). The reporter makes sure everyone shows up on all the popular streams and the rocker pulls social movements along to support the group. What, you thought cyberpunk groups tried to do covert missions? That's so retro. Now you do everything on camera and count on your supporters and public pressure to check the authorities. Shaming can be deadlier than monoblades in CP Red.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Titan in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Quote Originally Posted by HappyDaze View Post
    Rocker is now the social media player (along with the reporter). The reporter makes sure everyone shows up on all the popular streams and the rocker pulls social movements along to support the group. What, you thought cyberpunk groups tried to do covert missions? That's so retro. Now you do everything on camera and count on your supporters and public pressure to check the authorities. Shaming can be deadlier than monoblades in CP Red.
    Oof.

    The power of social media? Talk about making your revamp a prisoner of the moment.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

    Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.

    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

    The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Oof.

    The power of social media? Talk about making your revamp a prisoner of the moment.
    If you want to take it to extreme terms, there's nothing else quite like being able to incite the public to participate in riots on demand like the rocker. They have a flashback story in CP Red where Johnny Silverhand does just this to allow himself and others to break into a location while security is busy dealing with the hordes of angry civilians he whipped up with a few songs.

    It also allows things like the Flag-smashers pulled in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. No, not the super-soldier stuff. I mean the "hide in plain sight" because we have a flash mob that all puts on our signature masks to make it easier for us to move about. Might eventually work up to the V for Vendetta level of crazy with this ability.

    Cyberpunk was always made to have an angry downtrodden populace that was perpetually at a boil. The new version just gives a few more ways to make a character that intentionally manipulates that feature instead of just leaving it in the background.

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Rockerboy is a bit of a misleading title really. Back in CP2020 they were pretty much musicians, of the rebellious punk kind, but CPRed has changed that. They stand for any charismatic leader who has followers who they can get to do things for them. It actually provides examples of non-musician types, such as orators, politicos or cult leaders.

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Quote Originally Posted by Corvus View Post
    Rockerboy is a bit of a misleading title really.
    Yeah; they're not even required to be boys.

    Also, Solos can work in teams and Nomads can operate from fixed locations.

  13. - Top - End - #13
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Quote Originally Posted by HappyDaze View Post
    Rocker is now the social media player (along with the reporter). The reporter makes sure everyone shows up on all the popular streams and the rocker pulls social movements along to support the group. What, you thought cyberpunk groups tried to do covert missions? That's so retro. Now you do everything on camera and count on your supporters and public pressure to check the authorities. Shaming can be deadlier than monoblades in CP Red.
    That was the same as before though. The Rockerboy was always there to pressure corporations with huge crowds of people.
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    Quote Originally Posted by AvatarZero View Post
    I like the "hobo" in there.
    "Hey, you just got 10000gp! You going to buy a fully staffed mansion or something?"
    "Nah, I'll upgrade my +2 sword to a +3 sword and sleep in my cloak."

    Non est salvatori salvator, neque defensori dominus, nec pater nec mater, nihil supernum.

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  14. - Top - End - #14
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    I've run a couple of sessions of RED and my thoughts so far are compared to running 2020

    Pros:
    At it's core it's the same Interlock mechanics, but greatly refined, operating on the same Skill+Stat+Dice roll, but they've covered almost every edge question we poked it with so far.
    Multiple methods of character generation to make any level of experience player have fun.
    Revision to how HP is calculated, no-longer set 40 boxes of HP, someone with more Body and Will is resilient is very flavorful.
    Role Abilities are expanded and far better described, along with the ease of Multiclassing makes character design super satisfying.
    Removal of role assigned skill lists lets you build your version of an Edgerunner, and the inclusion of staple skills ensures everyone has the bare necessities for life on the streets.
    Critical Hits are simple and fun (When rolling your D6's for damage, 2 or more 6's is a critical hit, +5 damage, roll on table for rider effect)
    Clear rules on therapy to help gain back lost humanity, and other similar rules that were hard to find or conspicuously missing from 2020

    Neutral:
    Hit locations have been nerfed, and removing limbs isn't as easy. Good for survival, but loss of some fun moments of brutal combat.
    Armor has had a massive hit compared to 2020, simplified for ease of play, but your characters are going to feel squishy, and any armor of significant value will make your reflexes/dex/move suffer.
    Hard limits on the amount of Cyberware a person can have installed, this makes the character building planning more significant than before.
    The combat rules are clear and concise, but lost a little of the earlier granularity, for good or ill.
    The system being new means that the sheer number of Cyberwear available compared to the older games is limited, there's a good set of standard things players will want, but older players may miss some of the old tools they enjoyed using
    Character advancement looks like it will be slower than 2020, but a starting character with a capped Ref of 8 and 6 Ranks in Shoulder Arms, can hit a target at medium range pretty reliably with a rifle before cyberwear. Gear will be the first stop at character improvement.

    Cons:
    Weapons feel generic, this was done for the sake of balance, but instead of picking out your Maloran Arms .557, you're grabbing a standard Very Heavy Pistol, with the same stat line as the rest.
    The Martial arts is far less granular than the older system, taking it's formerly broad set of styles, into only 4 with 2 maneuvers in each.
    Improvement Points feel needlessly bloated. Instead of giving the party 80 IP, and they need to save up 120 IP to raise a skill from level Five to Six, just call it 8 and 12


    As the DM, one thing I really like about the PDF copy I got, is that every sidebar or reference to a different rule is Hyperlinked, making it easy to jump between the whole book if I need to look something up.
    Just to give a little more nuance to the Cyberwear, Guns and Martial arts issues I mentioned above, I want to add the caveat that I know the system is relatively new, and that there will likely be expansions forthcoming, but those were grievances my players had. Guns can be solved a little bit by the Old Guns Never Die PDF found on the R. Talsorian games website, to convert 2020 weapons to RED.
    Longtime lurker, Infrequent poster.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    If it follows 2020, then there will be plenty more supplements out with lots more weapons and gear to come.

    I can understand why they streamlined the weapons, even though I prefer the old way. Still, it does give techies an option to come up with new designs. And the new and improved role abilities are so good.

    Armour had to be tuned down. In 2020 it was ludicrously easy to become all but immune to anything but the heaviest weapons. Just medium armour and skinweave rendered you pretty much invulnerable to 95% of weapons in the books.

    Haven't really looked at the martial arts yet. Pacific Rim, which is my favourite 2020 splatbook, really fleshed them out, so hopefully they get the same treatment in RED with a later book.

  16. - Top - End - #16
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Yeah, with regards to tech either missing, or lack of unique guns my go-to response was to point at the techie and say, "He can make and customise stuff" or point to the Fixer and indicate, "He can find them, or someone who can make em."
    The core base guns are the standard iron you can get, and frankly they're not too shabby, just lacking a little flavor.

    One thing I missed:

    Netrunning: Holy heck is it so much easier to build an architecture for the 'Runner to navigate! It takes a moment to wrap your head around the floors system, but once you get into the habit of thinking what the security is supposed to do, it's simple. For Example, Autogun turret has a Architecture 3 levels deep, the first level is the password, the second level is a security daemon, and the third level is the control node to turn the gun off. Runners need to navigate each level with their net actions. If the runner has the password ahead of time, they are spared the action to bypass the password.

    There's way more too it than that, but you can create a simple framework for any device by just asking yourself, "How hard would it be encrypted, and did they invest in added software to hit the runner?" juxtapose that against their budget, and go from there. I add the last part because Net Architectures are not cheap, so don't get in your head that every single door in the place has an electronic lock, sometimes you need to just use a boot.
    Last edited by One Step Two; 2021-05-09 at 09:36 PM.
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  17. - Top - End - #17
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    DruidGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    Yeah, netrunning really needed a change from 2020. A netrunner just didn't mesh well with most parties. I know when i ran it, I streamlined it a lot, and it was more like CP2077 runners (long before that even came out). Runners went along with the party and got lone of sight on devices (like cameras, alarms, doors etc) and made a couple of rolls to hack and control them. More complex stuff of course still happened in a datafort but it was no long a matter of sitting around for half an hour while runners ran the fort looking for the controls for a door.

  18. - Top - End - #18
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    SamuraiGuy

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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    I really like that you can build the nodes into a larger Datafortress if you like as well. Where for a simple boots on the ground mission they might only need to find peripheral systems in the outer trees, to reach their objective they can ignore the depths. But if they are hired to get to the the core along with the ability to re-write or create viruses in the Architecture, it becomes a take-and hold missions where they party has to defend their runner, cause the 'Net is long gone, for now anyway.

    Thinking it over, RED has some really good elements for salvage, theft and item creation, base building wouldn't be terrible, not a bad idea for a game.
    Longtime lurker, Infrequent poster.

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  19. - Top - End - #19
    Ettin in the Playground
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    Default Re: Cyberpunk 2077 RED

    One thing I liked about Cyberpunk 2020 netrunning compared to Shadowrun, was you could go full VR without just being a useless lump. Like you could even build a barebones program to operate your body while you were 'out'.
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    Quote Originally Posted by AvatarZero View Post
    I like the "hobo" in there.
    "Hey, you just got 10000gp! You going to buy a fully staffed mansion or something?"
    "Nah, I'll upgrade my +2 sword to a +3 sword and sleep in my cloak."

    Non est salvatori salvator, neque defensori dominus, nec pater nec mater, nihil supernum.

    Torumekian knight Avatar by Licoot.

    Note to self: Never get involved in an ethics thread again...Especially if I'm defending the empire.

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