TigerGuard

That's one of the fun, but slightly aggravating, things about playing a character from a society you know so little about.  After I rolled Ukrainian on the chart I did some google searches and Cossack seemed to give that horse warrior / brigand / raider feel, and that felt right with a panzerboy.  Now with the info you've provided, it seems like I should incorporate a bit of that into how I approach my driving.  Good thing I've got two accomplished solos to get me out of any trouble I may talk myself in to...👍

You have to love the consistency of technology 

I've signed up on Astral.  If your preferred voice chat doesn't work, I have had more success with using Skype compared to Discord - I didn't have any feedback issues with Skype and it didn't require me to be in a sensory deprivation closet to keep from overwhelming the other participants with noise picked up by my mic.  Looking forward to kicking things off Saturday 😁

This has become glitchy about notifying me when something new gets posted so I may have missed it, but you keep referencing our character sheets like we should be able to see them. 

The linked file was the information provided by Senior Officer Mikael Van Atta - character sheets, paint balls, etc.  I didn't know if something new had been added to that which provided a selection of characters for the virtual experience.  I have a pic on pinterest that I think captures my look and will send it in a message.

I’m fine with the new time. 
 

What kind of avatar are you looking for? Is this something included in the linked file that was shared?

Works for me. 

Where do surplus eastern european fatigues fit in on the style chart - are they generic chic or edgerunner?

Cossack has 2 passions in life - the purr of an engine, and films from the golden age of American cinema.  The first has drawn him to the life of a smuggler, running goods - be they scarce or illicit - along the Carpathians.  It's a dangerous life that recently took multiple turns for the worst, and Cossack has been forced to reevaluate his career.  Thanks to all of those years of watching American films he's mastered the English language, so relocating has become his best option - or perhaps a necessity? - and what better place to re-invent yourself than Night City?  It's vibrant, glittering and straight out of Hollywood.  Who wouldn't dream of living in such a magnificent city?

I can totally work the Panzerboy.
 

First question before I start my rough outline - am I expected to provide a vehicle from my 10k sellout?

And second question - am I using the When Gravity Fails write up?

I will defer to Senior Officer Mikael Van Atta - as he’s,well, the Senior Officer - and to Jollygreenmyth since it’s his first foray and he should play something that interests him. I don’t do well with Netrunners as they’ve always been a bit of a side game so we never dug deep into them, but I can play any of the other positions you’ve indicated. 
I prefer my characters to be as randomly generated as possible to help me develop an interesting background for them, and given that the setting is a bit of a modified Night City I would like to be new to town so that my lack of knowledge of the who’s and where’s is understandable. 
Beyond that, I like the way you’ve described your GM style and game play so I will hit the ground running as soon as you’re ready

You said every 2 or 3 weeks, but what sort of day / time schedule are you thinking? I’m interested, but I’m in the Mountain Time Zone and work a pretty much 9-5 job. 

Sorry to hear it’s fizzled. At least you have something gathered in case a new opportunity comes..

There's a German program on Netflix called Babylon Berlin, you might be able to farm it for some inspiration as it focuses on the political turmoil of 1930's Berlin.  There is an episode where the police turn out to quell a Communist protest and the police characters get turned in to impromptu crowd control / suppression.  

Using said episode as inspiration -

1) The Communards hold a New Years Day March / Protest calling on the workers to unite and throw off the oppression of the ruling elite.

2) Police are turned out with instructions to restrict the rally to a certain locale, but not interfere.

3) Skinheads arrive and engage the Communards - do the pc's intervene or follow orders to contain but not engage?

4) Following the bloody altercation,  there are reports of gun fire across Kal as certain groups (government / police / criminal... is there a difference?) target Communard leaders and a few random locations to make it look less like an organized attack.

5) The pc's witness / are caught up in one such shooting (and they recognize at least one shooter as a fellow police officer), so do they stop the attack, or turn a blind eye in order to not be caught up in a situation that is obviously above their pay grade?

On 03/12/2019 at 06:55, senior officer Mikael van Atta said:

Back to the thing...

 

I think promotions / demotions should be a thing for characters who are a part of an organized group (be it a street gang, organized crime syndicate, corporation, military / police force or a Nomad family etc.). That's pretty easy to deal with, if we keep the results vague.

But not going to work for freelancers.

Also, there are several ideas on building wide (if low-level) ties to an organization ("local boostergang / Nomad family likes you"). We could spread these among the stats, I just have to assign what goes where.

Also, I'd prefer to keep the simple Financial Windfall to LUCK-attributed events only.

If promotions / demotions are handled as either adjustments to SA or Rep, then it works for both freelancers and attached characters.  For those of us that cap a SA at character creation, I would rule that it would allow a character to exceed that limit - i.e. I usually start my campaigns with a max SA of 6, but if someone rolled this on the Path and invested 6 points, then they would start with a 7 if it was a promotion and a 5 if demotion.

Ties to other groups could be based on the attribute rolled, representing shared interests or activities and giving an idea of how deep the connection is - like BOD contacts work out at the same gym, go to the same dojo, or do their daily runs in the same parks as the character (but I would keep such descriptions as examples and let characters decide for themselves based on their story).  If you rolled multiple contacts during the Path, how would you feel about allowing the contact to be promoted in their organization instead of obtaining a new one?  For instance, you roll 3 contacts during the Lifepath which usually means 3 low level contacts (one gang, one police, and one media?), but maybe instead you choose to up the gang member from street thug (first contact) to gang enforcer (second time rolled) and finally s/he ends up as part of the ruling council (third roll).  This limits your web of contacts, but may result in a stronger relationship, especially if the Stats rolled are different [first roll was TECH - you shared a class in weaponsmithing and kept in touch / second roll was EMP or ATTR - things became romantic / third roll was LUCK - one of you saved the other's life]. 

In regards to the techie, as you proposed the target is a 12 for success so his odds to succeed would be manageable - but it was an extreme possibility being suggested.  As for the Solo, most have high EMP to accommodate large amounts of cyberware, so if Lifepath is rolled after Stats are assigned / rolled and before equipment is purchased then his EMP should be sufficiently high to pass a mere 12.  

I guess the first question I would have to consider is how you envision the Lifepath process? Currently, our group works it thus -

1) Pick role

2) Roll Lifepath

3) Assign / Roll Stats

4) Assign Skills

5) Purchase equipment and cyber

6) Play the game

It seems that if we are to utilize Stat rolls in the Lifepath to determine Good or Bad Luck result, at the very least we would have to flip up point 2 and 3.  Would you prefer to drop it in between point 5 and 6?

Having sat and thought, and then run through possible character builds in my mind, the possibilities to alter a planned character via this new Lifepath idea has me giddy as a school kid.  Like many others, I go in to a character design with something of a plan for overall appearance and capabilities in mind - but a Lifepath that is Stat based instead of just Good / Bad / Romance means I might plan on a Mouser style techie and then roll every year as a BOD result (unlikely, but for arguments sake) and end up with a guy that looks like Paul Jr. from Orange County Chopper and now I have to expand my original story for this entirely unplanned development.  As a player building the backstory it means I have to be open minded and as a GM it means players who prefer the uber build because they "know" the system have to be ready for their lone wolf solo with the heart of stone, to become a magnet for people in need because of repeated EMP results!

This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I like the possibilities.

If you decide to move forward with this, please let me know if there is anything I can do to be of assistance.

While I am always excited to see a game from my childhood reinvigorated, Osprey Games currently has out a very similar game called Gaslands and it's designed to be used with standard hot wheels vehicles (making them cheap to acquire and fun to mod out with stuff from the bits box!).

For any who care to give it a peek while we wait for SJG to run their Kickstarter - https://gaslands.com/ 

I generally try to stay out of Senior Officer Mikael Van Atta's way while he powers through these mental exercises, but this time I'd like to throw my 2 cents in the air - maybe they'll hit a mark, maybe they'll simply float away.....

1) I think the main effect of the Lifepath charts should remain "fairly" minimal.  These events are as likely to be from teen years as they are early career, so they should be story builders rather than game changers.  While a gain or loss of €100 shouldn't define a character, it lays a foundation for defining who you became - which is what the random charts are supposed to do.  A roll at age 16 for a kid in school or on the streets should not have the same financial impact as a roll for a 21 year old who is active in his or her profession - so perhaps the gains and losses can be adjusted by age?

2) As a caveat to my previous point, I do wholeheartedly support the chance (albeit a very small one) that there is a life altering luck event in there that provides a major windfall like a vehicle for a Nomad, a penthouse apartment for a Corp, or some such thing that is specific to each SA.  For games that don't use them, then GM's and players can use the lists as a guide to create something specific that fits their game.  In regard to my previous age statement in the first point, I would say if this event occurred at a sub-standard employment age it would usually represent a prodigy of some sort.  (But this goes back to the story building aspect I see available to players as they progress through the Path).  In the case that you rolled a Bad Luck, a Corp would destroy company assets of an equivalent amount, a Fixer might loose a shipment, a Nomad destroys a Pack support vehicle (like an 18 wheeler), or some such tragic event based on SA which explains the crushing debt carried by the player.

3) Just because the previous charts had specific % chances for certain events does not mean we have to limit ourselves in the same way.  All of this is supposed to be an improvement over what's come before, so please don't feel shackled by what we have.  Having said that, if we previously had 20% chance of romantic events and you wish to maintain that amount why not have half of the ATTR events be romance related (maybe focusing on the fast and loose variety) and half of the EMP events be romance (the more lasting, deep emotional tie type)? Remaining events for both Stats could be Skill and Stat boosts or losses, as appropriate.

4) Things like loss of friends / contacts, or enemies derived from previous relationships without a pre-existing NPC should be maintained because even though they don't provide developed attachments for a player, they are fantastic fodder for a GM.  And a fundamental part of Cyberpunk is the unseen angle from which problems arise.  If some players and GM's see this as equivalent to a Nothing Happens This Year event, that is their loss.  The same goes for any event that doesn't create a meaningful mechanical effect in your words - I build entire campaigns off of these minor details.

It smells like new chrome.....

I'm not a prolific poster here, but I check in multiple times a week just because of the place in my heart held by Cyberpunk - and for once I can say, without a doubt, that this is one site I would actually support through a membership fee or patreon or whatever. I realize that may not be a popular option, and maybe there aren't enough people to make it work financially, but seeing this site continue on is important to me.

I hope you arrive at a decision that will allow this forum to continue.

Does this mean we might hear of techno-viking panzerboys running cargo?

I’d enjoy dusting off my books and trying out the darker side of the series if you can make it happen.

I'd appreciate some suggestions on what could be an agri-pack do (be hired to do) throughout the year in terms of farm work. I assume they travel from southern US to southern Canada and back again on contracts, as the year goes on.

Not that the characters are going to actually work in the field themselves, at least not on usual basis, but it would be useful as background info.

As a teenager, I worked a farm in California one summer. It was a sprawling facility that included areas for crops - almond trees, tomatoes, corn and broccoli to name a few - a cattle herd complete with a feed lot and slaughterhouse, a race horse division and a hotel on I-5 that had a restaurant serving fresh items from the farm and cattle divisions and a private airstrip for people to come in for the weekend or just a meal.

So outside the standard field workers, there would be employment for animal handlers, slaughterhouse operators, restaurant and hotel staff, transportation specialists to move goods between fields (to shipping areas for example), and general mechanics to deal with the various farm machines.

Personally, I like to believe that these are the sorts of endeavors that survive the agri-corp buyout - diversified, with entire portions which exist only to satisfy the ego of the owner.

A friend of mine who is more into the console side of things was explaining to me that CD had received some sort of government grant from Poland to help fund this and that arrangement had required a releasable product by mid 2019. Perhaps those of you who know the right rabbit holes to peer into know more of this - or the complete fallacy of it. I was very excited when it was first announced, and I love the new trailer, but my expectations of seeing it in my lifetime seem to be dwindling