Has anyone here ever played Cyberpunk 2020? If so, what are some experiences you can share? I'm interested in starting a campaign for some friends and was curious as to how a game can go.
Cyberpunk 2020
Lincoln Perry
Julian Hernandez
yeah it's alright
Nathaniel Price
Played it when it first came out. Had a great time with it. Ran it for years after.
Played a solo in my first campaign. Almost no cyber stuff, but jacked with skills. Went full street samurai with katakana and everything.
Ended up taking down this place that kidnapped girls to hook them to machines so they would be controlled for sex games - whatever you want. Called in a favor from a gang affiliation I had from character creation to do it. Later a full borg guy came back after me for revenge and destroyed by motorcycle (that sucked). I did manage to stop him though, but word was out on me and I had blown through favors already.
That was the first game I played.
Adrian Adams
that's pretty dope
Levi Ward
It's super dated now, both in terms of mechanics and its presentation of technology. I would just mine it for ideas and use something more modern or that has aged better. TechNoir is pretty good, Savage Worlds also, and you can always use FATE or GURPS, depending on if you want no crunch or too much crunch.
And if you hate yourself, you can play Shadowrun.
James Lopez
Is Shadowrun 5e the only real option for a modern rules-heavy Cyberpunk game?
Hunter Sanders
My friends and i are play thing next for the first time actually. Immgm anyway to make havking not retarded?
Are the chromebooks any good? I thumbed threw on at a book store once and was unimpressed.
Jacob Bennett
Hacking not retarded*
Don't drink and post kids
Evan Gutierrez
>Immgm anyway to make havking not retarded?
filthy phone posters
Asher White
I've been running it for almost two years straight now. I love the game, but there are a lot of situations not covered by the rules that you will need to houserule for. The core mechanics themselves are perfect in my opinion, I especially love how the wound track works and we always have great quick combats with it. I also love that the majority of classes are not oriented around combat, so you end up playing a much more dynamic game than just spending all your time going around killing stuff. Most of my most successful players have done so well for themselves by utilizing their social skills, technical skills, connections, etc instead of muscling their way through everything. It is better to get your netrunner to be more based around controlling cameras and the like and leave the hardline hacking up to an interface roll and a program once in a while - running the net grid is a chore.
Parker Rivera
I played it and GM'd it for many years. It is one of my favorite games. I'm not a huge fan of the cartoonish setting, though.
Hudson Green
This. If a group is constantly involved in combat, it's doing something wrong (and it won't live long).
Ayden Collins
No. Most generic systems will do it just fine. GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds, Hero.
But I don't really see why you'd want a "modern" game anyway (especially considering your option was Shadowrun, which is still at its core a much older game). Cyberpunk 2020, while flawed, is still quite functional, and it better encapsulates the essence of cyberpunk (which reflects the mindset of a specific period, as all speculative fiction does).
Brody Bailey
Its clunky but fun, and depends entirely on how well you can replicate that Cyberpunk feel and how well you know the rules as a GM. Its surprisingly easy on the players after character creation too, provided you know your shit. The actual game is pretty straight forward, not too many curveballs other than the relative lethality of the game. I really liked it the few times I played it but I had a good GM
Nicholas Rivera
Not yet. I'll give it a try in a few years, though.
Seems kinda cool.
Nathan Bell
Cyberpunk 2020 doesn't need that much change to be up to date. Hacking could be changed from the mini-game to something lighter. The other changes are mostly cosmetic (get rid of the omnipresent fax, make communication cheap, get rid of ridiculous 1970s-style gangs, etc.).
Samuel Jackson
Lucas Russell
Isaac Moore
Daniel Nelson
Hudson Murphy
Luke Gutierrez
Zachary Nelson
Jaxson Hill
Mason Diaz
Infinity too, if you hang around the seedier parts of the Human Sphere.
Justin Hall
Brandon Diaz
Cooper Fisher
Brayden Lee
Nathaniel Watson
Noah Harris
Ian Cruz
Some modernized corporate logos found on deviantart.
Owen Sanders
If you want to make a DM screen, here's a compilation of all important charts.
Noah Jenkins
>It's super dated now, both in terms of mechanics and its presentation of technology. I would just mine it for ideas and use something more modern or that has aged better
Basically this. Around here it's super-cliché because it was one of the few games that got over here that weren't D&D, so all players over a certain age went through it. Problem is, they're stuck there, and the game shows its age.
Isaac Thomas
And here's a slightly modified character sheet.
Sebastian Smith
The game’s basics are pretty solid. All the rest can be modified.
Adrian Walker
Adam Butler
The game has a bizarre aspect of chargen that makes for strange patterns. Cyber is really powerful. The balancing stat on getting cyber is based on character empathy. The other limiting factor is money and the highest money goes to doctors. So, the character most likely to be a Terminator-looking death machine is a former doctor with great bedside manner.
Jack Phillips
Zachary Nguyen
Not completely true. Cyberware is powerful but won't turn a doctor in a killing machine (especially if you keep the max. level for chipped skill to +3). Every point that is invested in empathy isn't invested in other, maybe more important, stats. Doctors have the most money, but at some level solos do have more.
Like I already said in a previous thread, Cyberpunk 2020 works best with medium to high powered characters (55 to 60 stat points and max. skill level 7). Otherwise there's a high risk that the game will turn in a parody with heavily min-maxed characters. If the characters are too powerful, then the game loses, IMO, its gritty and noir aspect.
Ian Collins
Jose Murphy
>get rid of ridiculous 1970s-style gangs
the gangs are a great thing about it. In that one adventure I was buddies (for a few minutes) with a gang called the Jimi's. They were straight up 70's style Jimi Hendrix types. Another gang I ran across, and had to escape, was the Jokers. Basically a bunch of guys who were Batman villains.
You get beyond the cartoonishness of it when you delve in to the culture of what is going on. Take cosplay of today and jack it up to eleven. Allow for full body mods and brain chips to hit the roll. Now add in disaffected people with literally no place in society, one that has truly left them behind. If gangs of today give current 'urban youth' a place to be and a home with structure today, then the gangs of cyberpunk are that and more.
Your NEET shut in can truly leave their life behind. The gangs become almost a real life CYOA of sorts that people can opt in to.
Xavier Lopez
As you describe it, ok, why not. There's some reasoning behind it. I can agree with that for a couple of gangs in some specific areas.
But I don't agree with the gangs, that are featured in the Night City Sourcebook: The Gilligan's, The Brady Bunch, The Brainiacs, The Bozo, The Philharmonic Vampires, The Mimes, The Sacred Blades, that ridiculous defense gang whose members wear rainbow colored suspenders, that fighting gang of super sexy chicks, etc. I don't want to play The Warriors, Beat Street, Wild Style, The Warriors from the Bronx, and Death Wish.
Carter Richardson
Brayden Roberts
>solo
>no ware
Austin Perez
Brayden Wood
Cameron Miller
Ryan Reed
William Smith
Aaron Fisher
Cameron Davis
>Are the chromebooks any good?
Chromebooks are mainly equipment catalogues. Therefore I do not find them to be that important.
Jeremiah Jenkins
Jose Hall
Nathaniel Ortiz
GM'd it for eight years or so. It's great, but requires a lot of work from the GM. By the end of the eight years I had houseruled half the game away and altered the other half. Still recommend it, it has a tone that's quite different from anything else. Very high lethality, any time somebody pulls a trigger somebody's going to die. Especially since people refuse to wear helmets because they look uncool, despite almost any headshot being instantly fatal on any character.
Carson Allen
GM'd it for about 20 years. Had houserules for about everything. In the end I almost completely reverted back to the normal system.
Liam Rogers
Jackson White
Ethan Williams
David Wood
So what would be some "essential" house rules that don't touch lethality? I'm guessing mostly just tweaking hacking so it's not a minigame that splits the party?
David Evans
(different guy)
For hacking, my advice is to not have it in your game unless your entire campaign is all about it. Or in other words, don't let anybody create a Decker unless the entire party is Deckers. That way there is no splitting the party.
You can also take a look at the Hardwired sourcebook, which has a full replacement for the hacking system.
Asher Gutierrez
Some of the changes in no particular order:
> the most prominent change was going to a classless system (players have to choose at least 12 stats for their characters, starting cash depends on what the GM wants to give)
> as suggested in The Black Hammer's Cyberpunk Project, I added the Strength stat, later I'd change other stats and skills
> PCs would get 1 contact, plus 1 per 2 levels of Streetwise
> then, I changed SP ratings of armor and skin weave and adapted them to Chromebook 4 armor creation system
> firearms stats were expanded with recoil being a new stat, reliability being expanded (VR, ST, UR, X, XX, XXX), and concealment being also expanded (P, P-5, J, J-5, L, L-5, n.a.)
> I made special rules for shotguns using buckshots
> I had a rule for initiative to give a more The Matrix feel to the game with bullet time (multiple actions per round by decreasing score of initiative)
> the system for ranged combat was changed first to a Twilight 2000 inspired system (d100), then to a homemade system
> I adapted the Ex Machina hacking system, to speed up hacking
> since the PCs spent a lot of time in seedy city districts I created the infamous Prostitution Chart, allowing to calculate the cost of about any service from a sex worker (depending on service, duration, and sex worker's appearance and status). It also gave % of contracting a STD.
> being a fan of The Black Hammer's Cyberpunk Project, I used their cyberware list and their drug creation system
> I always found the experience system to be a pain in the ass, so I changed the character advancement system (XPs are distributed at the end of the session and can be used to increase skills)
> instead of using a list of martial arts, which leads to arguing with XXX-style fanboys, the characters can distribute a number of points (skill level) among their martial arts special moves - by the way, I removed the brawling skill
> the health monitor got changed
Sebastian Ortiz
You missed the part about 'almost no'.
I went for stuff that jacked my dex (whatever it was called) and helped with skills. But no arm/eye/etc replacements.
Now days he would probably be seen as pretty meme edgy. But I would add as a defense that this was long before any of that stuff was meme level.
Isaac Wright
The reflex boosters?
Logan Clark
>I don't want to play The Warriors, Beat Street, Wild Style, The Warriors from the Bronx, and Death Wish.
I can understand that. Though I would suggest that the gangs listed fall in to exactly what I was describing (that game took place before that supplement was out of course).
The thing is we are seeing some of the makings of exactly that sort of thing happening. From shit in Japan to Antifa and the Nazi stuff. Imagine it when people can actually mod themselves physically and even emotionally.
Using current trends there should be gangs that are probably focused on movie franchise and such - anything that has a creepy over focused fanbase. But really following current trends we should see ideological gangs. Take it all up to eleven.
And really 'taking it to eleven' is a lot of what cyberpunk was back then.
I just honestly don't think it is that unrealistic. People get plastic surgery today to look like characters or actors. They have conventions based on that shit and cosplay what they can.
Jackson Hernandez
forgive me man, it has been like almost what...twenty five years?
There was some sort of nervous system hack you could get to increase your speed/dex/whatever. And I focused on that. I wanted to retain a high empathy rating cause I wanted to be a great guy. So I didn't go for any of the big external mods like the others.
Joseph Wright
So I went back and looked. And it wasn't Cyberpunk2020 that we were playing, it was cyberpunk2013. I should have realized as I specifically remember the Friday Night Firefight rules.
To answer your question, it was Chipware that was the only thing that I invested in.
Jackson Edwards
I’m ok with having weird gangs of bored corporate kids who decide to vent their aggressions as gangs. Those aren’t really gangs but posers. The really violent gangs from the zone aren’t going to LARP as mimes or DJs. But that’s my opinion. I’m not trying to convince you of anything.
Nathan Butler
Played in highschool once.
>friend was GM
>it was me and our other three friends
>they had a band in highschool so they all played rocker boys
>friend had a story set up but soon realized it wasnt going to happen because silly highschool kids
>he was cool with it and just started playing on the fly
>i was a solo hired to be security during their show at this club
>members of a gang started showing up
>a fight breaks out and i jump on the scene
>dead guy on the floor and three thugs size me up
>kill two of them with the chainsaw knife and blast the third with a shotgun
>my friends that played rockerboys all decide that combat is way cooler then they thought it be
>they start looking at the equipment supplemnt books
>GM decides to give them what they want
>so in game some corporate guy tells the band to sign a million euro-buck record contract
>the game turns into the best murder hobo session ive ever played
Ayden Hall
To take your side. It is just silly to think that every gang is going to be some sort of meme gang. If that is all a city has, then there is something wrong.
From a game play stand point I think it also hurts. When everything is special, nothing is - that sort of thing. If you want your Force Gang to stand out, you need some Bloods and MS13 types to be the majority.
Colton Diaz
Exactly. Otherwise the game turns into cartoon realm.
Jayden Barnes
Henry Johnson
Gabriel Allen
Dominic Price
>The game’s basics are pretty solid. All the rest can be modified.
I don't know what you mean by "game basics", but a combat system like that is unpresentable in 2018. Game design has moved on, in general, from that kind of mechanical structures, and for a good reason.
Although I hear that a new edition is coming out, hopefully it will streamline a few things.
Justin Wood
I think there is room for us to compromise here.
Justin Reyes
What’s so bad with the combat system? It’s extremely intuitive and fast.
Liam Sullivan
I like the system of stat + skill + 1d10 vs. TN for task resolution. I don’t agree 100% with the choice of stats or the choice of skills, but that’s a detail. Also, I enjoy not having exotic game mechanics forcing me to go through books constantly. Everything I need fits in the DM screen. The game is very straight forward. There are stats, skills and equipment, that’s it. Combat doesn’t get interrupted by feats/moves.
Cooper Evans
Nicholas Reyes
>Build former Russian spec ops solo
>only cyberware is a neural processor and skinweave
>end up in night city doing odd jobs (with the rest of the group) for the mafia.
>have a fairly glorious campaign, highlights include becoming an underground fighting champ, stealing and selling over 100 million in drugs, assassinating Biotechnica's head of HR and framing Mliitech's head of security, and kidnapping the CFO of a Korea-based megacorp to hold him for a 10-figure ransom (which we didn't get because he got kidnapped by someone else)
>campaign ends after the city goes on lockdown and my power armor's railgun rolls 2 1's in a row and explodes, killing mine and another character instantly. and wounding the others to the point where they can't effectively fight.
Luis Jackson
you mean like the "Future of wrist-mounted fax machines" or "A new cyberdeck with over 1000 megabytes of storage space!"
Jacob Gray
Only thing I didn't care for was just how bad a critical weapon failure could be (and how often they could happen) a 10% chance of your trusty sidearm turning into a live frag grenade isn't a very good design.
Matthew Hall
The critical failure system was a critical failure in itself. On a roll of 1, you fail. Then you need to roll again and check the fumble chart (1-5 you just fail, 6+ something bad happens). It is never completely clear when you have to roll for reliability. I made it on every 1 at the skill test and lots of guns jammed (PCs never bought stuff like the BudgetArms Auto 3 or Dai Lung Magnum who have a chance to explode).
Dylan Hughes
Yeah, the armor was taken kind of on the fly so I didn't have time to play with the loadout.
Blake Harris
Still, it would be very uncommon for a military grade CP2020 to explode. Usually they just jam. There are only a couple of polymer one shots that have a risk of exploding.
Elijah Hall
Ryan Carter
I really loved how over the top the setting's were, I played a Solo that started out hating the idea of corrupting his body and by the time the campaign fell apart was basically a cyborg. good times and could work with a bit of work updating the setting
Nolan Wilson
lol the kibbitz rule used to be applied constantly, our gm ruled that table talk while hacking counted double and since hacking was boring for the non hacker they got hit all the time.
Hudson Rogers
Tyler Foster
the fuck is the "kibbitz rule" and what does it have to do with that GM screen?
Lucas Moore
Good question.
Xavier Green
It's the rule that increases the difficulty of a skill check when you're distracted by the chatter of your teammates, and it's mentioned on one of the charts in that GM screen.
Michael Johnson
Gonna be running my first game of 2020 here in a couple weeks. Any helpful house rules or tips?
Should I/ is there a rule on how many actions a player can take in combat and should/does the negatives stack?
Luis Cook
I've been looking at infinity, and divorced from the setting it would make a very good cyberpunk ruleset. Hacking becomes much more pervasive, and a system for social combat as well. Not sure if I like the game's heavy reliance on metacurrency, but it looks interesting.
Ayden Gray
>divorced from the setting
The problem would be rejigging the lifepath, because that's pretty heavily stuck into the setting.
Owen Young
Yeah, I personally took the weapon reliability stuff out because I wanted a quicker game. What I like about the d10 system they use is that unlike say D&D 5E where your stats affect your rolls in a minor way, where the luck of the die roll determines most of it, the stat and skill levels determines so much of your roll that your build actually really affects your game consistently the way it should, starting with an 15 and rolling a d10 to cover the rest makes more sense to me than starting with a 5 and rolling a d20 to cover the rest - it equalized characters too much. The only problem is that critical fails become too common on the system because you have a 10% chance of failing.
Adam Green
I dunno - the newer styles of combat rules that I've played in newer games have been pretty shitty in comparison. What games are you thinking of ?
David Evans
Every 2020 game I have run or been in ends in a near or full party wipe (it’s cool though because it is expected of this type of game) the one person who manages to live gets the bank (and will need it) because they are fubar and basically become the plot hook for the next game because cyber rage .01 essence left. Fun times fast game and the kind of think that you play between other games. If you aren’t playing it like this you are playing it wrong... everyone dies!!! You are street scum what did you expect pawns (and why do you think the char creation is all randomized and should take 15 minutes at most to complete?)
Bentley Cox
Play the game as it is first to get used to the system. It will allow you to identify what you want to change. There is no point in incorporating lots of house rules from the beginning.
I allow characters to act only once per round. Simple actions can be combined (ex. shoot while moving, draw and shoot...), but it gives a penalty.
Lincoln Martin
Fumbles aren’t that common. A roll of 1 is an automatic fail, which is necessary since a character with a stat of 8 and a skill of 7 would otherwise succeed 100% of the time tasks with a TN of 15. The automatic fail doesn’t mean an automatic fumble. You have to reroll and check the fumble chart. Fumbles occur only on a roll of 5+ on that second roll (and it is indicated when you have to roll for reliability).