O'Borg

I see you guys could use a glass of water. Cold.

 

Be so kind and get off each other. As far as I know, you don't game together, so to each other their own.

Agree to disagree, and please refrain form insulting each other.

Or placing personal attacks, for the matter.

 

 

Please consider that offical.

You've been taking lessons from the Moderation team over at RPGNet, I see.

Rocky has a game running he might let you in

Really? I did a search for "Lesbian Stripper Ninjas" and that didnt return a result either.

There's a new game being advertised over at RPOL.net.

 

It's not my game, I just saw it come up and thought I'd mention it here.

9 players, looks like its full already.

Whenever I do a search on RPOL for Cyberpunk or variants thereof it always comes back blank.

It seems the hype for Cyberpunk 2077 has rekindled some interest in the CP2020 game in RPGland.

Youtuber Seth Skorkowsky has re-done his

Aside from a brief twitch from a corpse in 2016 the last games here died in 2012.

I suppose though, we could hire Indiana Jones to unearth the Gaming forum. Theres nowhere else running CP games of any flavour that I can see.

A modern city like Night City will not only be planned with traffic and access in mind from the outset, but also because the buildings have no intrinsic history they can be bulldozed and moved around almost at will.

Older cities are more organic, with roads and footways dating back to terrain and property boundries from antiquity. Central London for example is littered with hundreds of short, narrow and twisted 'roads' some of which barely admit a fat person let alone anything vehicular. And as many of the buildings are old they have historic value and you can't just bulldoze 200 year old building because you need a wider road for traffic.

Of course in London we nearly had the problem cracked back in 1940, but the demolition contractors flaked out on us and were unexpectedly called to a job in Russia.

It's not dark. It's not raining. Nobody's wearing shades.

But other than that...

Thanks, those bits on Maximum Law skipped me somehow. Though I think there is Gold Coast in Romania, too, which would make them European. And actually a heck a lot of places.

Being black... I wouldn't be putting too much weight on it. Might be a coincidence. Also, Flash Force are just as specifically mentioned as being white. Sure, it might be a matter of translation (I've read it in Polish), but it did always meant "uniform colors" to me - white uniforms vs black uniforms.

Hmm, Gold Coast Florida would be most likely; in the novel the GCML were a merc unit on Sarah's side, and she was in Florida (Tampa Bay).

Cowboy's side were in Colorado (originally from New Mexico) in used Flash Force mercs, which makes Gold Coast Mexico unlikely.

Still, I rather like the idea of an Australian Aboriginal mercenary outfit.

......

I got a list of names I'm so far unable to pin down on the table, perhaps someone has some ideas:

 

Unattributed:

Name / area of activity / source / culture of origin

Modernbody cybernetics Hardwired North American? - Yes.

West Coast Maximum Law security Hardwired North American? - GOLD Coast Maximum Law. They operate in North America, the novel specifically mentions them being black. The Gold Coast is in Australia, so maybe they're an Aboriginal outfit? Would be an interesting change if they are.

Coherent Light ? Voice of the Whirlind Space? - Yes

Far Jewel ? Voice of the Whirlind Space? - Yes

Consolidated Systems commerce Voice of the Whirlind Space? - Possibly, will have to re-read the novel to be sure.

Brighter Suns commerce Voice of the Whirlind Space?- Yes.

Far Ranger ? Voice of the Whirlind Space?- Yes.

Gorky ? Voice of the Whirlind Space? Russian?- Possibly, will have to re-read the novel to be sure.

The Hardwired sourcebook doesnt describe any of these, only the orbital blocs.

Excellent point on the drone encounter, O'Borg

 

 

I have a problem wrapping my head around the "privately owned / recreational drone" concept.

I see it as much the same as the difference between Commerical vehicles and Private vehicles.

Commercial drones would be built for thousands of hours of continuous use and longevity of service thus using heavy duty parts, designed to be operated by people with absolute minimum of training, and favour form over function. A Commercial drone would probably also buit with a single operational function in mind, eg Carry a Cargo or Be A Mobile Security Camera.

Private drones probably wont see as much use as commercial drones so can use parts that sacrifice length of service for performance, thus be lighter and more capable. They would likely also be multi-function (why buy a seperate cargo drone and a surveillance drone when you can buy one that does a bit of both?), and as with cars, probably designed to look good. Enthusiast users will want drones with the latest model engines, or stabilizers, or software. Their owners will be avid readers of e-magazines like What Drone?, Drone & Pilot and Custom Drone.

Am I allowed to use the term Rigger here, or will people throw elf-ears at me?

Okay, time to make a list of what the drone is actually good for.

 

1. Transport & delivery (order a pizza or have a shipping container moved to the other hemisphere, also passenger transport - from robo-rickshaw to bullet train).

2. Construction & maintenance (sweep the sidewalks, trim the hedgerow, clean the windows or build a skyscraper).

3. Commerce (advertisement board to vending machine to a self-propelled, automated store / diner)

4. Surveillance & security (from self-propelled security cameras to heavily armed defensive bots)

5. Service & craft (shoeshiner to print-on-demand robotailor)

6. Entertainment & information (loudspeaker to bookie to sexbot)

7. Emergency services (AED, fire-bots, other first-responder types... might be overlapping with Security bots :/)

8. Sanitation & waste management (self-propelled trashcans to pest control drones)

9?

10?

 

We could, of course, make some categories larger.

Just thought of a catagory not covered :

9 ; Private recreational - someone's toy (people buy these to play with these days, IIRC there are drone races, so logically in the future where tech like this is cheaper people might have their own drones to play with)

Which takes me off on another tangent....

It occurs to me that in the future drones could be almost like cars today. Aside from commecially owned drones, people may own one for personal use (send your drone out to pickup the shopping rather than go yourself, use it to deliver something) or for recreational use. And if drones are common, then like cars, there will probably be an entire criminal enterprises dedicated to their theft, stripping for parts or resale. And doubtless a specialised law enforcement team to counter the theives.

If this is a tie-in to Augmented Reality, should there be a table for "How do you encounter the bot?"

Something like :

1 - 3 ; Drone is patrolling / working in a preset area and will respond to or approach the PCs.

3 - 6 ; Drone is on its way to a specific location and will ignore the PCs unless they impede it.

7 - 8 ; Drone has become lost, disorientated or accidently immobilized. It may be asking for help, offering a reward to anyone who helps out, or a repair team might already be on their way.

9 ; Drone has been intentionally vandalized and stripped of several parts.

10 ; Drone is being attacked by salvagers!

There's also more exotic stuff that could be worked into CP2020 (or 2077), like Electrically charged armour and Liquid Armour.

(I'm wondering how you'd work cage/bar armour into CP2020's SP system without an extra set of die rolls - once to penetrate the cage and another to penetrate the vehicle behind it.)

The original was developed in 2014 but required a lab full of equipment to run it. They've now reduced the equipment so it'll fit into a small backpack.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42430895

Alas, year 2018...

Yep, and the last active game here was in 2016.

Perhaps in two years time someone will play Cyberpunk 2020 in 2020 just for the novelty value.

Berlin's sewer system was built for a much larger city expecting to get even larger and so is notoriously full of big empty spaces (and apparently in summer so little passes through it compared to what it was built for that large parts of it stand stagnant and stink out regions of the city...).

Wait...so underground Berlin has miles of underground tunnels with the prospect of abandoned / secret Nazi/Soviet/CIA places (not forgetting the allegations that Hitler was into the occult), and also the potential for Ninja Turtles?

What about the Berlin metro?

It's old enough to have predated both WW1 and WW2, it saw extensive damage in WW2 both from allied bombing and the soviets in the battle for Berlin, then had fifty odd years divided by the Berlin wall with ghost stations and disused tunnels.

The scope for taking artistic license down there is immense!

I don't really know.

 

But I know that, back in the Soviet times, metro systems were, actually, designed as fallout shelters. So here's that

 

The London Tube is of course a good one. In Split Second it was flooded and abandoned but it could be a great dystopian underworld

There's a faint bell ringing in the back of my mind about this; but I may be getting mixed up with Christopher Fowler's Roofworld (which is London, secret society, but up not down), and/or the old Hellgate London PC game which used the Tube a lot.

Technically there's more of the London Underground system above ground than there is below it, but the UK is riddled with underground places that lend themselves to fantasy fodder. http://www.subbrit.org.uk/ is a good source for that.

Didn't expect to see you back here Chalky!

I've been bumbling along, recently started my midlife crisis by quitting my job as I didnt fancy the move to 70/90 hour weeks plus 24hr on call, plus I bought a secondhand MX5 NB as a weekend toy, but as I own my house outright and theres only me and three cats to feed I can afford to be a feckless tool for a year or two before getting another job.

I've also pretty much given up RPGs; hard to find a group in my local area and after quitting RPGnet for the second (and hopefully last) time a couple of years back I havent found another site running cyberpunk games or even a generalist RPG site with an active population over double figures. Not sure I remember how to throw dice these days.

EDIT : Writing this has just reminded me that I'd been meaning to do a writeup / mini-splatbook for the Emphidor region in the old Dragon Warriors RPG. Now that I'm a jobless layabout I might get around to it.

OTOH 3 of my 4 Star Trek Online characters are all max rank and I'm upto level 86 in Diggy's Facebook Adventure

Before I add in my 0.02eb, are you looking for Cp2020 figures or something more realistic?

Indeed, the world has changed enough that I was looking for the 'Like' button for this thread.

Well, bike sharing operates in Moscow and Beijing now...

 

I'll tell you how this does work in my city, as this is what I have hands-on experience with:

 

As I said, in 2020 I envision it as a thing that exists mainly in European cities, and only in the districts that are at least Moderate: definitely no combat zones.

I had considered that, in the light of both successful (London) and unsuccessful (Paris) schemes, and decided with the CP2020 ethos of desperate underclasses, overworked cops, and a general lack of civic responsibility that theft and vandalism would be a far far bigger problem in a CP2020 world that it is today, making a public bike sharing scheme risky at best.

I guess it depends on your take on a CP2020 city. I tend to see big cities as places where the poor underclasses would steal your teeth if you leave your mouth open too long, and the scrap metal value alone of a bike would keep a family in kibble for a week thus making theft an attractive proposition.

I'd managed to miss this film at the cinema and never got it on DvD, so when I saw this on TV a few days ago I was impressed; definitely some Cyberpunk ideas in there, especially as a way to get Netrunners more involved in a game and put them on the front lines rather than sitting elsewhere remotely opening doors and hijacking security camera feeds.

So game concept sticking close to the initial stages of the film: the party have to extract some crucial information from a target, but they don't want the target to know they've been compromised. Therefore kidnap and torture is out, getting them blitzed and waking up in a hotel reeking of booze and hookers with no knowledge of the last 24 hours is also risky, so why not covertly drug them, hook them up to braindance with a talented netrunner and let them think they've just had a dream?

You'd require some infiltration specialists and fixers to grease a few palms just to get access to the target, a doc to put the target under and monitor his vitals, a netrunner or two to run the simulation, and last but not least, a rockerboy or someone else with influence/charisma to go into the simulation and carefully guide the target to giving them the information they need.

 

Bicycle

Very popular, because these are cheap to procure (though often stolen) and very cheap to keep in working condition. 3e$ a month covers the maintenance cost (note, as with all maintenance this is on average - one month you need absolutely no maintenance, next month you need several vital components replaced to keep your ride operational). Not really practical over longer distances.

 

Some cities, mainly in Europe, have public bike sharing schemes that cover most areas of Moderate or better standard (Combat Zones and other no-go areas aren't included). Luck Diff 8 to find a bike (Diff 10 in rush hour) ready for sharing.

These schemes are, effectively, cost-free for the user (they were designed to provide cheap and environment-friendly alternative to motorized traffic, and thus unjam the streets).

I don't think a Bike Sharing scheme would work in a CP2020 world, too much theft and too little interest in policing it.

But, what about a Bike Leasing scheme?

The PCs pay a certain amount per month, and a company supplies them with a bike, in maintained order, whenever they want it. Either they pick one up from the nearest bike garage, or for a small fee one is delivered or collected. The PCs are responsible for theft/damage when the bike is in their care, the leasing company takes care of maintenance and storage when it isn't.

Thus the PCs have transport anywhere their leasing company has a garage near, and the GM wont have to throw dice and keep track of things.

(I may have seen this in south London earlier this year, but it was late, dark, the shop was closing and I wasn't in the mood to hang about and find if the natives were friendly)

For Health Plans I'd go with option 3. Cyberpunk is dangerous enough (and GM screwing the players over encouraged) that if the PC wants to plunk down 1000e$ per month on a health plan rather than buying shiny new toys I'm inclined to be fair - nay generous even.*

Plus don't forget how insurance works; for every high risk client who claims big there are a thousand faceless wage slaves who pay into the system and rarely claim at all. Corporate employees probably get health insurance as part of their employment package, the bigger Police departments would probably do much the same thing.

You don't claim at all for a year, you get a discount next year. You claim a lot? Your premium goes up next year. (Do PCs even live that long?)

Of course any reasonably smart runner will avoid telling the insurance agent that their day job involves being shot at a lot, or hire a netrunner to tweak a few variables when it comes to calculating their monthly repayments.

*Sorry been writing today and I'm getting wordy. Forsooth.