The trick with pistols is to give them missions where discretion is king period In the 2020 rule book, it even says that they should get harassed by the police if they're walking down the streets with assault rifles. The weapons have their own roles.
this is how i handle it. if the team is trying to get into a bank, security is gonna nip that in the bud real quick. if they're dealing with a gang, they're not going to take kindly to the team carrying some heavy hardware around. if they have something concealable, maybe it goes unnoticed. and there's still plenty of opportunities to carry the big guns in the game.
@JonJonTheWise Emphasize to your players to pick up a selection of combat skills. Even if they don't carry the weapons they could acquire them later in a mission. Also they should arm themselves after the mission assignment so they aren't taking pistols against Maelstrom or sneaking into a hotel looking like Max-Tac. Cyberpunk might prefer specialists, but some degree of generalization I'd necessary. If nothing else you have a backup
this is actually in RED too, the police encounters mention they'll bother you if your weapons aren't concealed caused some tension when the ncpd stopped our little convoy of nomad bikes freshly "re-stolen" from an impound lot, not for the bikes, but because they saw the ridiculous modded tacticool Stobolvoy-14 our tech was gripping for dear life as he rode presumably with one hand. well, that and the speeding thankfully for the crew, they were a foot patrol, though rather good shots, and we were lucky everyone made it around the next turn before they hit anything important probably got entered into the ncpd crime database as "unknown idiot 'dorphers: speeding, failure to stop, presumably illegal possession of a firearm, whatever crime covers firing smoke grenades in the middle of the road for cover like you're some kind of mario kart character"
knowing a game's weaknesses is important information for the developers and the community. knowing a game well enough to know and explore those weaknesses is a passion product. i hate how some view it as hating the system. thanks for this video, choom
I'll simply address where I don't agree, everything I don't mention, assume I do agree. 1.Charismatic Impact: Pg.144, as long as they aren't in a hostile area (or in combat) a rocker boy can make someone their fan on a DV8 and DV12 create a huge crowd of fans. If The Rockerboy has this power, than other characters should not be able to do this with any kind of social test. 2.Operator: Yes if you don't like the scarcity aspect, then you won't like this role. if you play with night markets the way they are intended, it's a great role ability. 3.Rumors: It's as powerful as information is in your campaign, in my opinion the media is one of the most interesting roles, and the GM should always award them with information that leads to a massive advantage during that session if they pass the active DV. Pricing Categories/Weapon Intricacy :No reason not to keep it simple, the book even gives fluff for brands and gun models and you can make up your own. Car Pricing:Q.What if I need a car. A.The Executive can have a driver as part of their role ability, or you can hire a nomad.(multi-classing is also a thing 1 rank in nomad gets you a ground car) every car is by it's cost a bonanza and they should be treated that way. You don't just park a car on the side of the street, walk away, and hope it's there in the morning. At least one person is gonna be with the car, or it's going to be locked in a high security parking garage, or in a nomad camp that is heavily guarded.
You were wondering at the end if you should have created this type of video. Personally, it was very helpful for me. I've been working on an RPG based on Ghost in the Shell for the past two years, so hearing this kind of feedback from hardcore players is invaluable. It allows me to understand what's important to others, what works, and what doesn't. I'm not sure if you've done it yet, but your next follow-up video could focus on how you addressed the issues you didn't like in the game. I have plenty of ideas on how to improve the aspects you mentioned from a conceptual perspective, although I'm not familiar with the specific rules of cyberpunk.
For the most part I agree. I will say though that sometimes Combat isn't deadly enough. It might be very short as you said with assault rifles or grenades, when critical damage starts happening, but with low powered weapons or blunt weapons it can also become an ordeal and way too long if people are wearing some basic protection. I think they have simplified Red rules so much trying to make it more accesible, that they've gone way further than necessary, and now it's very hard to correctly emulate the actual situations. Also, the more James tries to justify some of those situations, the clearer it becomes it doesn't work.
as a new player my biggest complaint is that the book itself is really hard to navigate. the roles are my easiest example they are introduced on page 29 but dont tell you how their role ability actually works until page 143. thats over 100 pages i have to flip through to find the information. yes the roles state what page to find them but only the roles the ive struggled to find information about attack because of how the book has been layed out.
Just GM'ed my very first session, and the question: "Once we done the heist, how do we move away from here with the loot bag we stole?" came up. And after looking at vehicle prices, gave my players all a cheap bicycle :) Which lead to some rather funny scenes, as they fled on their bicycles from a bunch of angry Cultists with Acid Airsoft Guns shooting at them. Not very Cyberpunky, but lead to a lot of laughter.
I see CPRed in the same way I see D&D5e, it is fantastic to get new people into the game, but it is a bit over simplified. The free content is nice, but when you can just say X is a heavy pistol but when you fire it it glows neon, is there a reason to print that to begin with? I know none of them are that bad, but they feel close. That being said, I enjoy a lot of the ideas, and some of the mechanics in Red. I personally will stick with 2020 and just homebrew in the 2070 stuff when the edgerunner mission kit comes out, but I can see why people would prefer Red.
Im honestly looking forward to the 2077 source book thats apparently in the works. I have always loved the cyberpunk genre but admittedly never heard of this ttrpg until 2077 was announced back in 2012. Having the core rules for that point in time would better fit what i would like to DM.
I'm running a 2077-set game with the RED ruleset right now. Honestly it carries over "well enough" to be useful. It starts to fray around the economy issues but it's still pretty useable. If you want to DM a 2077-set game, don't let the world-building part of RED throw you off, it's adaptable.
Unless the Lawman is straight up calling for backup in a moments notice I've been letting them make phone calls to any friends they've made in the force/use their general connections to an organization to get shit done. Like having the criminologist come in and dust for finger prints or if he's a ganger having his homies roll up and smash up someones car that the party is trying to intimidate. So far everyone in my campaigns who have played lawman have said they really enjoyed it. They usually end up picking their favorite 3 or 4 people that they keep trying to call in over and over which I absolutely love. And god forbid you kill one of their favorite backups. My one party is seeking revenge after Tyler the rookie was killed in a bloody gunfight. I also let them talk to their bosses to try to organize assaults/ambushes/extractions and the like if their reasoning is good enough.
My homebrew on weapons is to pull content from the 2020 Core Rulebooks and add +1 modifiers for things like "Precision-Boring" and "Custom Hand Grips," "Laser Sites," etc. Also allowing Tech's tweak guns in interesting ways. We have one Solo with a Militech "Ronin" Assault Rifle refitted with Precision-Boring (+1), a Custom Grip (+1), Laser Sites (+1 to Aimed Shots), a Grenade Launcher Underbarrel, and a Shotgun Sidebarrel rigged up by the Tech with their "Upgrade Expertise" roll. But if they players can improve the rifling and get custom fitted hand grips and more for bonuses, then so can my Gonks! And if the Players try to pick up weapons from downed enemies with "Custom Hand Grips," those grips were customized for the previous owner and don't apply to the Player. It's a great way for Players to spend Eddies and really feel like they're building a custom firearm all their own, and also allows Pistol users to become really heavy hitters. I've had a different experience with Martial Arts with my Players, but it's taken a smidgen of Homebrew. One Player has Lvl 6 Aikido, Lvl 6 Karate, Lvl 6 Taikwando, and borged out with an Artificial Shoulder Mount and 2 extra arms X,D I've been giving him +1 to Grapple checks for having more hands to work with, and he's got Talon Foot, so +1 to things like Flying Kick makes them more fun and viable for him to use. Would LOVE to Homebrew some BJJ moves! I think I'mma do that right now X,D
"what if my players want to haggle without being a fixer" dude just take a level in fixer. its 60 IP if you want 10 percent off so bad. if you want to haggle more, why the heck would anyone want to haggle with you? where's your cred? why aren't you going through a fixer? who are YOU to want to make deals?
Lawman really is exceptionally underwhelming. I'm going to be very honest, if anything this comunity is too positive. The guns are boring, the roles are nebulous, e economy (and vehicles specifically) make very little sense, and the Cyberware is the most disapointing thing of all. The Cyberware in CYBERPUNK is pretty weak. You're sacrificing your HUMANITY so you can have faster access to a gun that... you could just carry on your hip. Also, the dlc? Pretty weak. The game is already very low on actually iconic and fun stuff now that everything is descriptor/quality, the end, and a big part of the dlc is like elflines? yugioh? achievements? and listen to this DM and his tips, when those DMs have the most prominent channels about the game, and you and just actually LISTEN, listen to them. Too positive.
I really like some of your points, I just wish you would add more on how you deal with these issues, especially the Rockerboy Media and Fixer abilities.
In my experience for Media and Fixers it's up to the GM to lean into being nicer to the player using those abilities. Like the fixer dealing with a grease culture is going to know outright how to avoid committing any cultural wrongs and should know how to make a better impression. Medias are nice little plot goblins. Sure anyone can hear a rumor, but medias are the only ones who should be finding rumors worth a dime consistently and their rumors should always be better than what the party gets by asking at a bar. Unfortunately Rockerboys are the one I think have a core flaw in that most of what you might want a fan to do are locked at higher levels. (Like 7+)
Wow, mad props to you JonJon for voicing all the Red's shortcomings like this. Occasionally I feel Red communities are already at the echo chamber stage, but you've really offered an honest and well articulated list of things that could have been better or weren't needed to begin with.
Awesome a cyberpunk video Question, will you be doing a video on the 2076 playtest they did in a recent con? Or talk about ideas you'd have about the time period? I ask because me and my group almost exclusively play in the 2078-2080 time period
We played Red a bit but after the amazing deep combat in 2020 we couldn’t continue with it. The system just doesn’t have the feel or the crunch we wanted. That being said we are once again playing in Night City with 2020.
I am okay with Pistol and SMG beeing sligly inferior to rifle is okay. Unfortunately I find it dissapointing that pistol arent all concealable with varying DV or have extra feature like being cheaper to buy ammo for ect... Also in 2020 pistol go from 2d6 2d6+3 3d6 3d6+3 4d6 4d6+3 and rifle started at a lower caliber version doing 4d6 like very heavy pistol. also Pistol/SMG round were so much cheaper that special ammo was quite nicer on pistol and revolver. and concealable Finaly Rifle unfortunately also have auto and bigger magazines, making them better in too many situations
I feel we're way overdue for a 2.0 edition of RED that addresses a lot of these problems, because Cyberware, core skills and weapons seem to be the most common complains. God I would love for RED to ditch the generic classification of weapons and just bring back individual models with proper unique stat-lines like the Sternmeyer T-35, the Colt AMT 2000 or good ol' Militech Ronnin.
I think this is a really good video. The only thing I'd love to hear more of as a soon to be GM is what you would do to "fix" things you mentioned not liking.
the point on economy is throwing me off, too. your explanation of a houserule for weapon pricing is... already how guns in the game work? you just made the Poor quality gun more expensive and the Excellent quality gun less expensive and changed the manufacturer names around.
Something that instantly came to mind, could pistols have some sort of disarm mechanic? I think of the battlemaster subclass from 5e. With a high enough skill level and type of pistol you could get a disarm/intimidate/weakspot attack with a limited pool of points to spend. When you see a cool guy in a movie with a revolver or pistol, they are always using its compact form and single shots to do creative combat maneuvers.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but cyberware actually can affect the damage you deal with your hands. Grafted Muscles and Bone Lace or a Linear Frame raise your Body which raises your damage. Currently my MedTech player has 10 body and is throwing 3d6 at ROF 2 equivalent to a Heavy Pistol
@@JonJonTheWise just fyi, my MedTech player built the Daddy Shark build because of your video on it. Great work! Now I have an overpowered wrecking ball I have to balance for 😂
I'd always felt vehicles were rare in the time of the red, so my take has always been there *aren't* cars everywhere for you to steal. Which I actually quite like.
A better explanation is that fuel is rare, not cars. There were cars in Night City before it was blown up, so there should still be cars around. Why would they vanish? A good tech should be able to take an abandoned car and get it working again. But if the supply lines have broken down, then fuel should be scarce and expensive, and fuel does vanish as it gets used up. So then, yeah your edgerunners can steal a car or find an abandoned one and fix it up, but it’s gonna cost a lot to keep it running, and it might make them a target of scavs who want to steal their fuel. Nomads have access to fuel tankers, so they still have the advantage of their vehicle specialty.
In regards to the Lawman, I let them roll the ability for backup before a fight actually breaks out as long as they have a case or there is a crime serious enough to warrant backup.
I had the opposite experiance with backup; the backup showing up turns it from a tense situation to a trivialize slog that it takes forever to get to the players winning. A home rule I use: one point of luck gives you a bonus to a role skill equal to the role level, so a nomad is always the best driver, cop is always the best investigator.... I have not had assault rifles dominate my game, personally, but I can see how they might. I counter that by using "concealable" tags. Ie, they are not going to let a solo with heavy armor and an assault rifle in to the show at the opera where the deal is going down. You also have other, interesting reasons to use different weapons; ie, that sniper cannot do as much damage as an assault riffle, on average, but they can do dead shots from 400 meters away where they are out of the firing range of most. A super heavily armored opponent is going to have armor worn down faster by melee weapons or martial arts because they 1/2 the sp and let you do more attacks, usually. You can reduce armor by 2 sp a round instead of 1. I was mostly satisfied by martial arts, but I would like more non-damage effects. Ie, kung-fu to take an eye out with a finger, some grappling arts that can immobilize and not get caught in the dmg would be nice; maybe even a fencing school to modify weapons as there are a lot of swords. Brazilian jujitsu is not really core as it is a fictional world so in this time line it just never got popular as karate; you can start doing the same thing with sumo or Krav Magra so you have to draw the line somewhere... As far as customizable guns; black chrome did a good job of providing a road map for how to mod guns; ie a pepper box is a smg that only auto fires, 3 round bursts only, and they basically took a basic stat, gave it a pro and a con or raised the price. That made it easy for me to release enough custom weapons to scratch that itch. With 2020, my players had a dozen choices for pistols, but they always just chose the one with the most damage. Sure there were more choices, but no one ever took them because some were just better. It is kind of like having vanilla, vomit, shoe polish, rotten apple, and chocolate flavored ice cream as a choice instead of just chocolate or vanilla. I do like red better than 2020, but there are some warts there. I think the economy is kind of screwy, but that is a ttrpg for you. I do think most players should start off with either a car or a bike, but have them be a little broken down; maybe have a roll on a "critical injury table" for a car to reflect something is broken on it for some reason. Cyberpsychosis should be more random and less permanate; a bit more like madness in Call of cthulhu since pc's never experiance it unless they do not understand the rules. Having bouts of psychosis where you forget the mission and just try to get a higher kill count or ignore a friendly in danger from a few rounds seems better than the current system.
Been planning to run a game myself for quite a bit now so videos like these are really great for knowing what to watch out for. but to be fair my players are currently more focused on matching tattoos, accidentally. i guess that is better than them utterly gutting my haphazard oneshot...right?
I assumed that since cars are expensive and crime is cheap, then all cars would default to being loaded with anti theft measures. hiring 2 gonks to sit in your car while you go to a meeting or go shopping might make sense, or a trama-team like business that is a fast reacting recovery service for stolen cars.
I agree. Even in 2077, we see fallacy stealing cars right away in the Street Kid origin. That was done with the benefit of an insider AND unlocking tech which doesn't currently exist in Red, yet V still got caught. If a car is on the street Night City of 2045, it almost certainly belongs to a corporation or a Nomad clan, either one of which can bring a small army down on the head of a hapless car thief.
You're not gonna have cars parked on the street unattended anywhere, corp zones are gonna have high security parking garages, and you will have executive drivers, whose job it is to protect the car, in addition to the corporate security they can call for backup, out side of the corporate zones nomads are operating in a similar manner. Every car is a bonanza and they will be guarded as such.
Enjoyed watching this video JonJon. I'm new to Red, having recently picked up the core rules book. As I prepare for our first game I appreciate your thoughts on game mechanics and how we might tweak them to make the game more enjoyable. Well done!
Great timing, just before my campaign begins. Agree with you on the abundance of cars and guns. I also try to make a lively Night City for my players. It might be the worst city to live, but the best city to become a hero.
I like your take, but since i have lead like 2 sessions and i am preparing for third, i dont think i will homebrew sht just yet. :D i dont even fully know rules as written. :D
Slicing car costs by 66% improved my game's economy tremendously. I also ignore exotic weapon rules completely. While I'm not onboard with this video entirely; the one thing I agree with 100% is that the combat, while smooth, lacks depth and trends towards optimal choices. The weapon rules in terms of damage don't have to change, though maybe they should, but if they are to remain as they are where medium pistols are useless, and rifles are king; then they should create gear that helps facilitate expression and choice in weapon types. I don't need SMGs to be as good as rifles, but I do need there to be a clear and sensible reason why one would want to use one over a rifle that is not limited to campaign restrictions. I really wish the effort that was put into things like stickball, elflines, and lootboxes was put into just gear, gear, and more gear. Stuff like the Punknaught is great, and I'd love to have more of THAT. As it stands while I'm enjoying running Red I feel like I'm constantly required to think of new items to add because eventually someone will ask "Is there a pistol that fires rifle rounds?" or "Would it be possible to get some kind of jetpack?" Currently we're looking at laser sights. The Solo wants one and who am I to say they don't exist? Needs to have some function too or why bother so a'homebrewing we go. I don't mind it, I like homebrewing, but I'd really like a supplement to come out that is just 20 weapon upgrades to take some of the load off.
I tried playing RAW and we really hit walls. My concept has been what makes the action go "BURR", which meant a lot of at table calls. but my players saw it to many times. Ill being still hosting My Trauma Team Stories at Orcacon though. I always get a full table
The car price problem is weird, and while you could pull a Traveller and have pre-calculated monthly payments for a given car model, and tack it onto a monthly cost of living cost, it definitely is weird. Maybe a used cost multiplier of like 1/3rd or 1/4th for consumer vehicles might make sense? You get a car at a reasonable price, but you also have some used car quirks. Needing a check in combat situations to start up, increased stunt DCs from wonky steering, missing door paneling letting that ganger choom still target you while your in the car without the benefit of cover. The bit on assault rifles and that 5d6 damage meta definitely is how I feel. Playing a detective-esque, or some sort of street ganger that doesn't use rifles cause he can't jam them in his waistband just doesn't really work, even at the lowest tier of enemies. Looking at the vanilla bodyguards in the back of CRB, they have kevlar on with a armor of 7, which really dampens a heavy pistol, and mathematically means half the shots of a medium pistol just do zero damage. Its a bit different with the CRB Boosterganger mooks, but then at that point you have to find justifications that an enemy *wouldn't* have 50 eddies to buy a kevlar vest, which is a bit whacky. It seens that the old 2020 rule of armor piercing halving armor it hits might be a bit better than doubling armor deterioration.
Re: weapons - I agree, don't tell your players they can't have fun (an assault rifle). That's not fair, you have all the power as the ref to compensate for one of the relatively few choices a player can make. Re: pistols - Rule number one: Style over Substance! Tell your pistolero that you love he's got style! Remind him that style over substance means that he should accept his decision and the consequences. Besides, he's still contributing to a combat, and it's a cooperative game, not a competition.
I don’t know much about TTS roleplay although I have always wanted to get into it, cyberpunk in particular. The only solution I could think of when it comes to the car scarcity problem is having a campaign set in a city that is actually designed to be walkable. Cities in North America in real life are literally designed for cars, not for humans. For example, a post apocalyptic Amsterdam, despite being all fucked up, would still be feasible for people to travel around in on foot.
Strongly agree on Backup and Charismatic impact; I'm running a cool cyborg cult leader using rocker/lawman, and maaaan its rough in these streets. Hard to get the backup goons to show, but at least they're on hand for any believable in-city fight. But the rocker fans? sheeesh. Fan generation requires random npc's in scene, it requires those npc's to be neutral or better towards you, it requires a semi difficult DV check to make them fans at low level (gets much easier with time though, until it goes the otherway and you can very easily convert the masses) and then what that DV check allows you to ask them to do is a little 'fuzzy'.
First off JonJon, thanks for all your vids on CP Red; a great contribution brother! This retrospective brings up difficult themes & ideas : which is better 2020 or Red ? Honestly both have great components & not so good components. It's all opinion of course but I really like the Red timeline, the Near Apocalypse setting & scarcity of goods, the Role abilities for the main are better developed in Red but i think you're right about Backup & Operator. I find cover in Red to be awkward & strange so I've house ruled that. One of my players is a fixer & he's great at using Operator especially the Contacts & Clients component ; he reduces my GM workload by just making up someone on the spot; we both run with it & it enhances the game immeasurably. For some reason I thought you lived in Texas JojJon!
The mechanics are sadly very dated and restrictive. Yes, you can homebrew things, but that means needing to fix A LOT of stuff. RED was merely a retouch, when it need to be completely reinvented. This pains me because I love the world so much :(
They give prices and examples for cheap, average (or something akin to that) and excellent weapons so the economy isn't as bad as i first thought, coming from 2020 as well and i was really unsure about the lack of variety before i saw that table.
Backup - So, you've never had to call the police in your life time? Not even once? Are these cops following you around? Do they teleport in? If they just happen to be in the area whenever you need them how does crime even ever exist? Like, 8 out over every 10 people in Night City would have to be police officers?! Also, why are you only calling them for combat? What about all of the other cop stuff that would go faster with more cops on the scene? Interviewing witnesses, looking for clues/evidence, and all of that...cop stuff?
Most of my party in my game actually dislike assault rifles because the range penalty in close quarters is too restrictive. They all tend to gravitate to VHPs and especially shotties with slugs.
Without knowing the great details of the different class abilities: couldn’t charismatic impact, operator, rumors, and backup all be party resources? As the group gain notoriety they can call on these abilities and utilize them in their investigation and prep phase. Seems like it would streamline the class selection in a way that favors robust character development opportunities. Again, just a thought without knowing the minutia.
Theres some good points brought up in this. But after running a few games and helping with a server that has 20+ players I have mixed views. Combat is fast and deadly. The AR is absolutely strong. But my pistol gungslinger was honestly one of the top killers on the server - despite being a Fixer. Hell i took a Heavy Pistol to a gunfight against a Helix wielding psycho and I wiped the floor - tho I got lucky i admit. But each weapon has it's place to dominate. The pistol comes to bars. The AR in parking lot shootouts and the shotgun when Mama Bells decides that the RCL needs a buckshot eviction. I think martial arts is way stronger personally; I watched a rank 4 solo tear apart a Psycho I built for a long term antagonist. Took four rounds I think? Didn't even touch her. To fix the excessive crunch of 2020, where you needed a calculus degree to even fire three bullets, they swung the pendulum way to hard. There needs to be a balance to crunch and fluff. Enough detail to appeal to the combat gremlins and tactics nuts but not to much that'll overwhelm the socializers. I would love to see your list of homebrew changes, if you're willing to share them. I'm working on a small overhaul of the game - mostly with the combat because my friends are focused on that - dealing with economics, cover, ammo, fashon, etc Good video Jon, i always appreciate your content. Congrats in 10K. Just say the word and we'll burn down Saka tower!
Going through this and I have some input on the car dichotomy of there being lots of cars but cars are unaffordable- Leases and short term rentals. It'd take a little homebrew, and I might write something up on this, but the solution seems to suggest that most people who drive *don't* own their car. They either lease if they're corpo or middle class, or they use short term rentals like zipcar. You either have a membership as part of your lifestyle that lets you short term rent a car for one day a week or you pay X ebs to get around. Maybe 1-200 eddies per 24 hours and 10-25 eddies per hour? Gives players flexibility and still makes the nomads super valuable with the vehicle pool. Theft is still a valid option. And maybe even preferable because the leased and short term cars (Hmmm... Ziggurat Car Rental- ZiggyCars!) will have trackers/tracking as part of their service, and a wrecked leased/rented car needs either insurance or now the player is in significant debt. Not a big deal if you're heading over to the bar to meet someone, but if you're going to need wheels to do something criminal, it's not ideal. The Backup ability for Lawmen is always a little weird because it both is too slow for combat and at the same time, the idea of backup arriving within 20 seconds is absurd. Not sure how to balance this- maybe let lawmen call for backup before combat starts? Or do a blades in the dark where backup rolls to see if you called it 5 minutes ago and it arrives at the start of combat, but the normal Backup ability *always* goes off in combat, it's just a question of timing. I might also think about, if a lawman is flashing a badge/their authority, to allow the Lawman role level to add to face-offs. Pulling iron on the fuzz should be a line that makes people hesitant to cross.
The hill I'll die on is is the economy in Red can work well. Since everything 100eb and under is something a player can buy at any time, there is still the illusion of abundance. Vendits are everywhere including the plastic firearm offerings, Can still walk into a shop and walk out with armorjack, a gat, and a box of grenades. The Illusion part is that that Rifle you grabbed is poor quality, something like the Darra Polytechnic stamped metal AR from 2077, it's scop but it's everywhere. You're never short of things, but the things are crap. The thing that is scarce is quality, and that's something sought after which I think works well for a Tabletop and has the players feeling unique as they slowly accumulate that quality kit. It also means it's worth having bad guys that have good items to loot, incentivizes Fixers or having contact with Fixer NPCs that will help source things for a cut, and means that paying them with a hard to find item I know is perfect for the meta of on of the PC's can feel extra special. I 100% agree on the vehicle price side of things though, and would add that Network Architecture stuff is equally staggering in it's cost compared to the rest of the game, why does Johnny Silverhand's iconic 3516 cost the same as a server rack?
charismatic impact can TURN people into your fans, you don't need existing fans. Persuasion also cannot do the things that Charismatic Impact can do without GM fiat. Persuasion is like hey. Let me into this club, I won't tell anybody. Charismatic Impact is like hey. Join my cult and your soul will be saved. Ok great now that you're in, risk your life in a gunfight for me. If you're letting your players do stuff like that with Persuasion you are a very, very lenient GM.
Charismatic impact sounds just like charismatic leadership. Back up seems like a redundancy to me because there is no cop in the world who can't call for back up and it won't come it doesn't need to be a skill. Authority seems more logical because you have that bravado, that you can put into your commands where you could stop a dorpher doing something crazy and they drug addled state.
I have a problem My master think: Netrunning out of combat is a problem because the others players will be doing nothing... How to solve? Somebody help me
Before the video starts for me i will say my piece, see if JonJon says the same. Full Auto is Garbage Light Melee Weapons are cyberware ones and are bad Poison is bad Aimed shots are not that great late game Inteligent bullets are bad Emp is bad Bonus Hands are bad Buckshot is bad Lifestyles do nothing (Where you live, what you eat etc) I will edit this after i'm done watching and explain it even further Shields need a tackle mechanic Swords need a bullet deflect imo The rest of the game is amazing imo One thing when it comes to character sheets i would love if the added a segment where you can write down what fighting styles are you using, just like the languages. Also a car chart would be nice Combat is the biggest problem of the game which is weird since combat is the main point of the game.
I just started running a campaign in Foundry with my usual crew coming from DnD. I have had a similar issues that I have houseruled around. As the GM I have beefed up the "weaker" roles by sending players mail at random, etc that lead them to use their abilities, which has been working. My fixer has gone out of his way to roleplay making new contacts and friends with other fixers and even their neighbours, and I reward that by giving those NPCs roles and life, which can help my fixer get what he needs. I have gotten to understand the balance between weapons. ARs are king, but concealed weapons matter. I still let them conceal long arms on occasion, but it's been player driven. My players have been getting around it by jumping through elaborate hoops (hiding them under bulky thrift shop clothing, et cetera… that they have to play out and pay for). The other thing I plan to do is introduce them to a tech eventually. There isn't one in the party, and given how much the customization of weapons and equipment circle around a tech, I figure one will be good to know. Re: cover. I dont like it, because on a flat map with visual line of sight like in foundry, a portion of the token is visible behind cover if you arent just directly in front of that cover. You can be a square over and see a sliver of the token, bang, target is out of cover. I get that hold actions are a thing but it doesn't feel great. Next session--I'm trying is you have to see the center of the square. If you dont, it's covered. Theoretically it should encourage flanking up to 45 degrees and actually encourage more environment damage... Which i think is reasonable.
I hear ya Jonjon but I do think they will change a lot of stuff later on once the 2077 book comes out I doubt that they're not fully listening to these complaints with the game also with the scarcity you don't have to give them the best guns they can still be poor quality weapons a PQ Assault rifle is 100eb
While I agree to some of your points I really can't understand your point on assault rifle.. of course they're gonna do more damage than pistols! Should we have all weapon do the same damage so that the difference would be only aesthetic?? If you wanna use pistols and do damage you have a very heavy pistol that's 4d6 instead of 5d6, seems more than fair, also, pistols have a lot of different reasons to be chosen over assault rifle, they usually can be hidden so you don't go around sporting your assault rifle like you're in a warzone, they have a different DV table 'cause they're more effective in short range.. I'm really surprised you mention this as a critique.. also martial arts, I agree it would be nice to have more variety but they already let's you do some cool stuff, remember also that all martial arts allow you to recover from being prone for free, which has many tactical advantages.
I havent played Red yet, but i do have the book, My table voted to play 2020 and so far we've only had three sessions, hoping we'll pick it back up again
i had a character that was a ninja he had no cyberware, flavored because his starting Humanity was 2, he was denied any cyberware because he had adverse reactions to it. he used a plain wooden bow and a short sword. no technology at all we had fun and flavored that the character's sheer lack of technology made him invisible to some common sensors, which had him do these stealth missions that ran a bit like a Net Architecture in the way that it was a Solo mission. i ended up 1v1ing a Boss on one mission. i snuck up on him and stabbed him in the back of the neck. cool. he turned around and we started this long drawn out fight, where i eventually just dropped my sword (+14 skill) and used my fists (+10 skill) because my short sword just could not get through his armor because my fists did 3d6 and the short sword did 2d6 damage. it felt bad. it really broke my immersion as this stealthy Ninja character that i couldn't damage him even though he was wearing Light Armor
Thanks for the big picture look, JonJon Honestly, I am one of those guys who picks up any new rulebook and as I read it ask myself, "Can I streamline this any more?" I ran a session last night for exactly one hour because that is all of the time we had, and I did more simplifying for my players on the fly to speed it up. If I were running a baseline-crunchier game, I would have just cancelled the session. Hearing people want to purposefully add complexity for complexity's sake will probably never sit well with me. I do definitely agree that some of the Roles abilities are not intuitive. Better explanations might be sufficient, but alternate options would also feel welcome.
the main issue i have with red is there is just too many hitpoints, we both love the crits but they dont happen oftern in my games and it let to a senario where i manage to destroy someones light armour jack from full to empty with them still standing and fighting
During the first campaign I ran in RED, I already started modding it. Now I have a completely stand alone game which I run, where I can still easily convert all the stuff from the dlcs to use them in my own games. I did modify pretty much everything from RED, but kept the cost categories and equipment templates and built more stuff and complexity around them. I felt the templates and simple cost categories were the best best addition for the whole thing but they were not robust enough. The hp and all things related to combat I've modified so far it's completely unrecognisable.
Can anyone recommend good Cyberpunk actual play podcasts? I would love to play TTRPG but I'll never have the right friendship group to be able to, so I have to live vicariously through podcasters.
Yup. The game already has rules for Called Shots, so even having a Partial Cover mechanic that requires a Called Shot to ignore would have been better than what they went with. Combat in Red just feels too much like video game.
Thoughts on Cyber Limbs : 1. A Cyber Arm/Leg is a weapon, even if using Brawling it would halve armor SP rounded up. 2. A Cyber Arm/Leg is sturdier than a meat arm/leg, when using it in melee combat increase the base damage to the next level of "Body Damage", i.e. 2d6 becomes 3d6, 3d6 becomes 4d6 etc. but only when using that particular limb, assuming of course that you only have one cyber and one meat limb. Could use one or the other as homebrew or both, or none if you don't like the idea. Just my personal thoughts on that issue in particular.
22:55 RE: “Pistolero” character I definitely would prefer the 2nd option as both player and GM. Similarly a 3rd solution, to take a more DnD Approach, let them invest IP into essentially a feat where they get bonus pistol damage in XYZ situation or a reduction to the -8 headshot penalty when That character wields pistols. The XYZ scenarios should be conducive to how they play or introduce new options. Requirement weapon skills outside of pistols or something so everyone doesnt dog pile lol
I think we should also include the frustrating meta of people with max REF or Relfex Co-Processors just dodging bullets left and right. We have plenty of ways to deal with them but honestly, it quickly becomes stale and prolongs combat unnecessarily.
As you were talking about weapons I am just sitting here with a Shining smile and nod saying "Yes. Yeeeees. Crunch, you want *crunch*." Bring back the crunch baby. 2020 gets a little much with it, but cyberpunk shines with it.
Coming from 2020 and playing Red since it came out, I agree with most of your points. :-) The "car problem" I solved by using the prices in the book for brand-new-nice-cars. Cars the edgerunner can "find" or buy ingame are usually much more rundown and beatup. Like half the SDP because yesterday the owner drove it through a gang shotout, less speed because the engine is on its last leg and penalty for handling because its a piece of junk. I also ran into the "assault rifle problem". This I solved by really cracking down on the concealment mechanics. Most people in Night City are no comfortable to let people with big guns run around freely. Even in the combat zones the local gangs might object to it. In any case, big gun carriers stand out. Also I use light armorjack and up very sparingly for my NPCs and made aimed shots way easier (+4 on the roll) when attacking "from ambush" aka the enemy does not see you attacking. Yes, in a combat from behind counts. To make the lower damage guns less useless :-D
some really great constructive ciriticms, I've also struggled with trying to balance bringing back some of the complexity of 2020 without slowing down the game too much some things i added in my own game: going prone: helps to achieve full cover more easily, harder to hit from ranged, but can't move properly without standing up +2 to hit, partial cover (basically exactly ss you've described it previously), you are also now a little easier to hit if you didn't move at all last turn (partially also a tradeoff for prone) and a probably unbalanced one, but martial arts damage can now secretly hit 5d6 per strike if you have specifically achieved body 15
Frankly, I’ve been working to make a synthesis between 2020 and RED. Take the good changes/additions of RED and add them to 2020 with a couple house rules.
I think cover didn't need 3/4 cover or anything, I think the rule needed to be more like 'as long as your body is mostly behind cover, you count as in cover - if most of your body is out of cover you don't count as in cover'. Simple and intuitive. And with the amount of info on material thickness and hp you have that complexity of choice because shit cover is basically like having a half or 3/4 cover rule
After running a multi-year campaign with the system I feel like the system is complex enough if you include all the supplements and play with that. What I dislike about that is that it's hard to organise the game if you don't plan on making your own tools. My biggest problem with the whole system is how hard it is based on the whole scarcity economy. Everything is based on it and it's very restricting to the flow of the game
I agree with a lot of what you said in this video, in fact I am running into a lot of those roadblocks and gltiches during my campaign and sometimes struggling to explain certain things logically. I wonder if you had some feedback/response from R Tal folks on your video, and whether you thought about discussing the topic with James Hutt in the next Night City Council?
I was under the understanding that some of those abilities that you don't seem to understand just happen as the plot is needed.. for example, the Rockerboy will have someone tell them "Hey it's you, did you know... blah" No rolls needed. But then again I only played one hour of the game so far... 30 years ago.
A great example of a fixer that I saw was Jim Fingers from a podcast called Red Sky City. This is a more conspiracy based campaign which allows Jim to get into serious counter-conspiracy shenanigans.
I think the issue with the assault rifle meta is that the game is locked to d6 and d10. There's only so many ways to calculate damage. That's one advantage of using multiple dice values. If you up the value of roles i.e. allow a pistol to fire of three shots to an assault rifles one the pistol is guaranteed a dmg of 3.
i've only held a corporate edgerunners-type of campaign until now. they've never had a problem sourcing anything (the corp can find anything for them), but it takes time if the items are something they don't use for their own people or it's outside the corp's area of expertise. i had them going to specialized fixers for stuff that wasn't normally on the market (like a Millitech Grenade Pistol the solo had to work up to by making nice with Millitech agents )
