Joe Q. Public

OMG I just about pissed myself Hans!!!!!

Hey man, if ya EVER NEED A PLAYER!!!!!!

I'm there like booty hair!!!!

LMFAO!!!!!!

Having actually had to carry a loaded shotgun under a long trenchcoat in real life for a business transaction, let's just say that everyone knew what I had and i wouldn't do it again.

Considering that a person of shooting caliber can have thier close altered to fit the sidearm of thier choice, carried where they feel comfortable by a decent tailor (you dress left or right, here let me measure you w/ the piece as you use it type of thing) I believe that a handgun can be carried under a medium amount of clothing (and yes, my sig fits wonderfully under my silk suit, thankyou) concealability is not that much of a stretch considering that one uses the standard catagories and doesn't pack a ammo can worth of clips under the uniform.

But,

If ya put a hand into a bag and a NPC of mine sees ya do it, just remeber that they can make the awareness rolls just as well as the characters can...

Planning is all well and good, just people need to learn to plan on the fly.  I know that in many situations (CP2020, D&D, shadowrun, C oC, the various GURPS, and heck, even in WH 40K-rogue trader rules) that many of us as GMs know that planning is both fun and neccessary to get some things done, but just try, and I say try to the new groups out there, to do your planning on the fly. Our characters are Professionals of thier sort and if ya spend all the night palnning away you'll miss out on the real fun of character personality adjustment and formation. That way when your favorite guy dies,(and yes it always will happen) you have a better standpoint on how to develope your next character.

Roleplaying is acting, not just reacting and I think that the sooner a group embraces it the sooner they all will come to find thier play that much better.

It is owned in part by a ex-Panamanian campaign Solo named Butts Brutal (hey, you laugh at him, I'm not!) and his wife of 10 years Trish. They live above the establishment, not doing any of the serving or bartending, but more enjoying the crowd and making sure that they know EVERYBODY there. Butts will introduce himself within 30 minutes of newbies coming in and will adk then if he can buy them a drink.

The Dumpster has a few oddities in that, although there are bullet holes in the exterior, no on has ever heard of a fight breaking out here w/ gun play.  It seems that the place has no security beside the 6'6" doorman (John) and the propietry.

This fact is most obvious when someone decides to draw something. Unlike most watering holes the entirty of the patrons will stand up and pull steel on the offending party. Considering that even at closing time (6 am) this is about 10-12 rough looking folks it seems to work very well.

Yes, Delta Green is a wonderful resource for modern Cthullu and the various plots of the US Gov.'s Majetic Projects and a great tie in for lots of strangness. I think it's published by Chaosium, but please, ask one of the folks w/ a shoop (hey phipps can ya help me) on just how to get it. I've had mine for some time now...

"let's go guys, - uh! he smells horrible! I don't want to ride with him in the front, hey Ivan you said that the air vould be goodt to him, I second that emotion. I'm riding w/ Porter."

Steps out of the bar and looks around the entrence, taking note of any likely suspect/victims and looking around to see if there is any sign of Ms. Purplearm, I think that arm would just look splendid on me! (what do i see?)

I have to say that as a GM I really didn't give the player too terribly much time to think up a plan for hours.

1. Damn it's painful

2. If you're playing in almost real time (fortunately, I had the luxury as such), they just don't have the time either.

3.Planning did occur only in 3-10minute time out's a night, at which time I'd order pizza, make a cigarette and soda run etc. so the player only used them when they knew they were about to bi in something big, otherwise, play was done on hte fly.

4. When the plans that take forever don't work (and this is as a player) one has the tendency to get ticked off about it. Oh well life sucks.

If player spend 80% of the time planning, it makes character personallity less easy to enjoy, really who plans how to waalk into every room in real life.

The Dumpster: Bar/music hangout

Building is a old late 40's sytle of  red brick 2 stories tall with all the window screened then boarded up w/ a single riveted steel door on the front and a steel top-bottom door on thte back.

The Bar is about 40'X40', a standing bar that is about 30' long on the south side with a 15' bar on the E side.

There is staris going up in the NW corner, slightly behind the smaller bar, metal risers and pole handrail.

The interior of this club is painted a flat black w/ various graffiti over just about every suface from around 60 years of vandals and patrons commemerating thier nights.

The SW side wall has a declaration "Drink The WALL!" with various names and what appears to be vommit spains adorning it. Unlike any other wall in the room, this one has NO table next to it as if it were a memorial.

The place is lighted in cheap blue Neon lights and blacklight closest to the standing bars. The tables are iron circles about 6' across and bolted (maybe welded, no one's ever tried to look) to the floor with some of the MOST uncomfortable chairs know to man around them. There is a 10'X14' stage in the NE corner that ends about 6 foot from the front door.

The DUMPSTER is freequented by wanderers, vagabonds and the scum of the earth, but also there seems to be a steady influx of food connisures that are showing upin pairs, eating and then either staying for the show (bondage, S+M, freakshows and your latest punk groups.

More later

I've been GMing for a whole now and I was wondering what others use for effect during thier games:

I personally only GM in basements if at all possible for a few reasons:

1. Nothing quite smells as edgy as a old dusty basement

2. the lighting is totally up to me. Considering that my average games ran 2-3days+ I needed to be able to manipulate the ambient light to fit the day light schedule in game(done real easy w/ a cheap hologen torchier)

3. I use a strobe in the background during firefights and battle. Hey your characters are stressed, shouldn't you be a bit distracted as well.

4. Pizza ( the gaming food of champions) is real easy to clean up on concrete.

5. Very few families are upset when they're basement is commandeered unlike, for instance, thier dining room table

6. A big fold out table holds 6 player,2 will do about 10 +GM referemce pile. These fit nicely in basements

7. I like my music constant in the background, basements make for happy neighbors.

8. I smoke like a chimney around hour 20 and up when GMing.

So what do you do and lets all share the wealth here

# ablums that are a must for bacground

Skinny Puppy: Either singles Collect or the new Comp of B sides

KMFDM: Retro, a good colection of all the CDs

SUBHUMANS: EP-LP or Ramones:Mania Both are punk classics and play a hellva long time

Hey all.

Lets just say that cannibalism is more prevalent in CP2020 than you could ever dream of, either that or I've been running some pretty sick sh#T!

"A good night sleep out of the coffins sounds like a dream, and besides the people in here have been staring at me all night. Be a gentleman and pick up my tab?"

Get up, stretches a bit to work out the kinks (OMG these chairs are stiff.) and slings the partially open bag around her arm, zipper open just enough for access, and grabs ahold of the other bag carefully to not spilll the tumbler inside.

(Russian_

-"Ivan, I think I've had enough, lets go."

(English again)

"thank you for the hopsitality Por'er I think we should get your friend's head out of the urinal, he's bound to be sick all night" Walks toward the door,"Who's driving?"

Thanx DragoonCav, actually if the character has a decent INT (lets say more than a 6) he can figure out bombsetting by the instructions. Weather or not that he uses the right amout is when the KFB comes in.

I think it ended up best w/ a solo of my best freinds being know as "oh Sh#t! Duck" which was later known only as Duck, considering that he made a PC w/o demolition skill and insisted on using it until he actually got enough IP in it to actually do something right.

I think the character's real name was something like John?

As I said before.

Oh how I miss the fun and excitement that West End Games had w/ paranoia!

New things come and go but who can improve on a Classic!

I can see actually having the herds not be much of a problem considering the high amount of High Desert and sage brush land that really you can't grow anything worth harvesting on.

Besides, my charcters would just love the flavor of good buffalo!~

Cheap food for the masses:

Hot fun: warm vending machine dispense semi-coagulated goo coming from a machine that closes resembles an ice cream machine. Tastes kinda like beef, but then again, if you're eating it you really don;t know what beef tastes like

Cold Fun : you guessed it. Cold smooth gealtinated creme that comes in 2 fruity flavors, blue and RED!!!!

Oh how I miss Paranoia!

Now if I'm not mistaken a GM is asking what do these character need all this money for?

ACK for the love of Chrome Man!

Players, be they feeble newbies or seasoned professionals need upkeep.

Who's feeding that nanosurgeon habit you have in your body?

Who's paying off the police in that smuggling business you are the head of?

WHO'S PAYING FOR THE ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD?!?

That is what the money is for and if your players are swimming in creds up to thier ears, brother man, somebody dropped the ball.

Make'em Sweat!

In the lovely world of 2020 why wouldn't the Media put out such games shows as $50,000 crack rock?  

Set it in the walled off combat zones of any rotten city and advertise it a week in advance and have it sponsored by, heck I don't know, the localDEA (look how low drugs hae brought you!) and let the media televise it on cable or some-such link to show the local gangers who are crazy enough to fight to get it>

what do ya all think?

"Who's zis Chucky?" acting as if th vodka is having some effect-(heck she's from Poland, not bloody likely!).  "Does it seem that my new 'smart' (smirks) friends have been taken advatage of? I could definately use an excuse to get some money to help re-establish my equiptment here."

Noticing the time (ack! it's late!) "Or maybe this chunky guy can be dealt w/ in the morning, no?"

"Porter, considering that your friend Will seems to had his fill and this burrito isn't getting any better, how a bout we all go home and sleep this one off.  I know, personally, I would kill to have a real shower after using shower in a can out of the vending machines the last 2 days." Motions toward Ivan, " I suppose that our freind here will concur after you see what he has, no?" Zipps up one bag, patially unzips the one that doesn't seem to be carrying too much (the one w/ the gun) and raises her eyebrows to Porter to make a move to leave.

"Besides I need a veiwscreen to hook into to take a look at something I just found, but more of that at your, um.. home?"

Here kitty kitty kitty.....

Well for the basics one will need the Ianus Games RTG Cyberpunk books Dark Metropolis, Grimms Cybertales and oh crap, I can't think of the title of the other one and it's in my basement.  Included in these little know treasures is a great system for running insanity (see thier stress managment tables) and a good system for running C o C type spellcasting (Expert: Spellname etc.)

Unfortunatley I didn't have these gems when things started getting dark and disturbing in my campaign, but trust me when i say that this system is a lot more concise and user friendly.

Started the plot off in Chicago, post crash, as a very thriving and very depressed city at once (having lived there most of my life I can assure you that this is very accurate) w/ the standard street level campaign in mind, hired jobs, bad drugs, star-crossed affairs etc. unitl i could get the PCs fleshed out (remember this was 1990 and we didn't have a lot to work with) and set up a good group of NPC contacts and such to enrich my city.

Being that Chicago is right against Lake Michigan, one of the most serene and dangerous bodies of water in the continetal US, the pull in plot for Cthullu was a shoe in.

Deepones were fully engrossed into the Old Money of the chicago area, and the supply of technology was steadily getting better (i.e. more of hte Chromebooks were coming out) and that culminated in the advent of the Full converison Borg.

Full converison, with the lovely additon of my love for anime and BubbleGum Crisis Boomers fit together like peanut butter and jelly, but I'm skipping a bunch.

If one has played C o C before you will notice right away that the investigators don't really have much of a chance w/ gaslight technology.  This adds to the allure of getting the characters into stuff that will defiantly blow thier head off all the more eveident.  Couple this w/ the lovely book, Delta Green and the wonderfule conspiracy world of Necroscope, a GM can find all sorts of things to make the players crazy as a J bird with little or no help from the fact htat I have read justabout ever Cthullu story ever published by not only the honorable Mr. Lovecraft, but Derlith and her contemporaries as well.

Boomer/borgs become a bit more common in civil service and science teams working at the Arlington cyclotron, thats olready there today by the way< and with the wonderful break through of almlgamation of borgs to other epuiptment made possible by our friends at (my local cybernetics company who is aligned w/ a Hasturian cult and recieveing shoggoth based tech from Tycho on Luna) much chaos and destruction was asrisen.

To keep up with this amassing of great cybertech and stand up to the new big guys on the street, the party took on a benefactor. A certain lady who ran a Flatline Clinic (see any of the Necrology modules) supported my group of vagabonds and misfits who, btw were all pretty psychotic by then (hey if you can play it true, you get ot keep it in my game) and started augmenting themselves w/ this love corrupting Cthullu'ware (see the green bolt gun of C O C "Fragments of Fear" sourcebook for an example.

the great thing is once Corruption starts in Cthullupunk, it never really can stop, and usually snowballs. Word of adivce, if you can't control the avalanche of materials and facts and keep them straight all the time when playing, please don't run a cthullupunk campaign. The powerlevel gets really high once the player have started to recognize a bit of what they're dealing with, and if you can't say NO, don't let them ask, but please, it should theorectically work (3 of my player went on to be engineers and one is working on Prosthectis design)

I left the group after over 10 years happy, but spoiled for any other CP2020 game and when I go there every year or so we still all manage to get together and play a night.

GM to GM warning though, if your group was as aggressive as mine, copy thier sheets every month or so, otherwise you'll forget something you gave them and a little item that is as mundane as Superglue at the wrong time can throw off the delicate balance of the game in the mid and upper levels.  

Remeber, it's your world, your the GM and you decide the rules.

Don't give the lawyers an inch!

Happy PUNKING!!!!

Joe Q Public

Liking the big burly and, even though I know it's a stereotype, dumb Russian type Renata smiles like a school girl getting away w/ wearing a miniskirt for the first time, and looks to Ivan as the direction of her future, at least until someone else comes along that does better or he gets himself killed (really, who orders vodka by the bottle anymore?)

In her worse russian (it's relativly close to polish) she says "Ah comarade it looks to me as if you are the one I've been waiting for on this fine evening w/ these boys. Pour a lady a drink and I'll show you things with that arm of yours you would never imagine..."

"Renata (holds out her hand to Ivan,)"Renata Pavlovich' cybersurgeon extrordinaire"- English

"I will be you physician for this interlude into the night!"

Orders one of those terrible burritos, face it she hasn't eaten all night and she needs a little something to soak up her drinks.

"Since the group is all here, let's go have some fun, Da?"

(scan the new guys for all the cyber he may have on, anything else obvious?-Human Percept/Cybertech)

Rnata finishes her vodka-tonic and asks that if Will would be a dear if she would order her a burger, rare and algae fries w/ Soy=Mayo and another vodka-tonic.

By the many jibbering mouths of Azathoth!!!!!!

I fell that some example must be given, considering that I ran a Very, very successful Cthullupunk game for about, um lets see, from 1989-90 to 2000, I guess that makes almost 10 years (although I could only manage the stamina to play about 1-2 month for 2 days, oh the migrains and the sweats that my players went through!) I guess that I can give the example one of two ways, and this is important my little Culties yearning to be free:

I can either start GMing a game here, w/ cyberjunks approval of course.

Or

Give away all the plot and game dynamics that allow one to run a crazy #ss game that is cthullu in 2020 w/o being munchkin or sissy about it.

WARNING: out of 20 or so people that started my game only 3 left w/ thier original characters when I left the midwest to move toi Portland, I don't go out of my way to, but character fatality IS a fact in this type of campaign.