Hey folks, I'm learning Cyberpunk 2020. I saw online someone say you should start players off on rank 5 for their role skill, to allow for character development. Thoughts? Do you guys start your players on a specific level or do you let them pick their level at will?
Howdy! I'm starting a couple cyberpunk red campaigns in the upcoming summer, and one is taking place in 2020 and the other is taking place in 2077. Because of this, I wanted to create a deep-dive mechanic, since it fits more with the periods.
So for normal red netrunning, I've turned that into basically a quickhacking minigame. You see a turret you want to hack? Get close, do the net architecture as normal. Want to look at the files on a computer? Do the same thing. So each device has its own mini NetArch.
When it comes to deep-dives, I've basically moved over the 2020 rules of having to navigate to a location, and using LDLs, and then deep-dives give the opportunity to do larger netruns.
These longer netruns would take place during downtimes generally, and I would be checking in with the rest of the group to see what they're up to (similar to what netrunning for info is like in 2020).
Any thoughts? Ideas? Has someone come up with a better idea before?
Thanks in advance :)
Edit: I have seen the Edgerunners Mission Kit, but don't like quickhacks just being a skill check. My netrunner wants to keep the "minigame".
First of all, I am looking for advice/input, I wasn't sure what flair to put. Second, this might sound like an extreme statement but hear me out please. Third, content warning for swearing. Fourth, this might sound like high school drama but we're all 19-21 (bodily we're 20)
I am a fairly new alter, I've only been around for five months, and I don't understand the relationship the other alters have with this friend group and why they find it enjoyable. I myself just like to talk to my fellow alters, because we always co front and we have a very "developed" headspace. I know they've been friends for a while but they're so widely nasty to us that it seems pointlessly one sided.
First of all, they never invite us to things. And when we try to invite them to things its like pulling teeth. One of the friends had a competition, 2 (of five total) were going to watch, apparently the other two were asked but said no. Then the only reason we heard about it was because one of the other alters asked what they were talking about, when they were talking about going out in a vc with us. Another time, an alter decided they wanted to go out to a restaurant, and when they get there, the five of them were there eating without us. When we did manage to put something together, we were gonna have a birthday party for one of the alters, everyone fucking canceled last minute except one.
Second, they constantly make fun of our hobbies/interests, and then expect everyone to be super into THEIR interests, and everyone is. We are constantly made fun of for the games we play, in fact our host was told they're not allowed to talk about their favourite game around the group, and we were eventually bullied off of playing it. The other alters get the cold shoulder when they talk about their hyperfixations, but when the other friends talk about theirs, everyone gets super interested and actually participates. One alter had a hyperfixation around star wars for a while, and was literally fucking told "Shut the fuck up about star wars i don't gaf (give a fuck)". Then a friend had a hyperfixation around a movie series, and they all got together to watch it (we were invited but couldn't come). Another time, Our alter was watching the world cup and excitedly talked about how their team won, and one of the friends said "You know what, I wanna be a hater. Soccer fucking sucks how the fuck do you enjoy it" and when the alter said that they didn't like the way that was said, everyone else sided with the friend.
This was brought up in another post we made, but the friends have been saying weird things about our DID, even though they've been around it for YEARS atp. We have an alter with misogynistic tendencies, but he knows they're bad and just doesn't interact with them at all. However, the friends decided to convince one of the alters fronting to vandalize their video game character by changing the appearance and clothing to look like a girl (it was reversable but why antagonize him like that?). Later that same day, one of the friends snapped at the alter fronting for saying something that apparently had been said before by another alter, and the friend said "Holy shit you need to get better at remembering when people have said things. You guys can at least remember that". It was such an asshole thing to say. AND PEOPLE AGREED WITH HER. They also have a tendency to gossip about other alters in a mean way. Like there's this one alter who one of the friends doesn't like, and whenever he's brought up, she starts yelling "BOOO" and responds with tomato emojis in group chats. I mean, he's not the nicest guy ever but he's still a part of us.
Lastly and most recently, and the thing that sparked this, was that we have a very nice alter who likes to bake, and shows her love by giving food. She made some food and delivered it to one of the friends as a gift, and the friend texted her back that "I'm not gonna eat this, I'll give it to my mom", and then a few months later the alter dropped off some more desserts she made, and we got a long text telling us off for bringing them food because it creates a "difficult situation". I understand not wanting to receive food ig, but she couldn't of said "thank you"? or "I appreciate the thought"?
Anyway there's just a lot of shit that has happened. I think this relationship the others have with this group is toxic and bad for our mental health, but we have trouble connecting with people and making friends, so they're too scared to break it off or distance themselves because then they'd be more alone. But A) we have eachother, and B) I feel like isolation is better than being the outsider of a "friend" group.
I don't want to talk to the group, and I've tried talking to the alters. Is there another angle I can go at it? Should I just leave it be? Is there anyone else who's been in a similar situation? Input is helpful, thank you and sorry for the long post.
Edit: As of now the extent to what I've done is I've set our group chats to mention only. Thankfully they also don't like me and can probably see that I'm fronting so don't want to interact with me at all.
Edit 2: There have also been a couple "friend group schisms" and so I'm going to reach out to the people who left the group for support, as others left the group around a year ago because they thought it was toxic as well.
I was reading up on the 2045 lore of other countries/regions, and I was thinking about what an campaign would look like in those regions.
Like China is still recovering from their civil war that they finished right before the Fourth Corporate War, and seems to be in a cold war with the Soviets/SovOil, and Arasaka who backed the independence of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Kang Tao just recently restructured themselves into a Chinese-based corporation, and the country itself is still under martial law. Also Hong Kong is uninhabitable and is where a bunch of AIs just seem to live and Beijing is covered in domes and has an underground city. Not even to mention the triads that would take the roles of Boostergangs I think.
The Soviets were left relatively untouched after the fourth corporate war because they just sat selling guns to both sides of the conflict, but the Government is still very corporate-reliant and very militarized (I believe). But there's some conflict between the old corps like SovOil and some new up-and-coming corps that are developing. Cities in the Soviet Union also seem relatively normal and like an undamaged night city.
But what about other places too? The middle east is probably still very nuclear waste-esque, Japan is probably pretty crazy, or Germany, France, and Europe generally would also be interesting to look at.
What do y'all think?
Hello!
So I'm a GM coming over from Cyberpunk 2020 with a new group who wants to try Red. I'm super excited, and it seems like a much easier system to teach (especially netrunning). However, I'm having trouble visualizing the setting, and maybe people can help me out in understanding it.
The following is what I've come to understand, please let me know if I'm wrong:
Sorry if some of these points are completely off, I'm just trying to understand the setting. I'm kinda considering running a cyberpunk red game set in 2020, but I want to understand more about the 2045 before I make any decisions.
Any guidance helps!
Hello Reddit!
My system-mate told me about this subreddit and I wanted to give a little success story because I'm really proud of myself and my fellow system members and wanted to talk about it!
Some context first, when we were younger our grades were always really good, despite our general issues in life, but we had a very traumatic shift when we were around 19-20, first year university. During that time, our grades plummeted, it actually got so bad that we got kicked out of university in our second year, and had to transfer to another university and program.
But in third year (the year we just finished) we locked in, and we just got back our grades and we have an 80 in most of our classes (which is pretty good for university), the only exception is this one class that had a bunch of timed quizzes that you had to do at a certain time of day, and its really unfortunate that we still struggle with short-time assignments like that, but our prof said that the papers we wrote were fantastic!
BUT we got through our amnesia, worked together through good communication and notes, and we got our grades back up to a respectable level!
Anyway, that's our little success story I wanted to share :)
-K (She/They)
Hello,
So recently two of our friends approached us and told me that they were "getting tired of the casual misogyny in the system". This was following a conversation about a problematic alter that we have who is openly misogynistic, but is thankfully super anti-social and hasn't interacted with anyone at all to my knowledge (he kinda fronts, does his thing, ignores messages, then leaves). I haven't noticed any casual misogyny other than this one person but that might be a root cause of the issue in itself, and I just don't really know what the best way to work through this is?
Our system is split into two separated subsystems, a larger one (~13 ppl) and a smaller one, and I'm part of the smaller one (only 5 ppl) and don't really know about what kind of stuff goes on in the larger one, so that could be where most of the misogyny is? Although the larger subsystem is mainly women or non-binary identifying alters as far as I know...
Also we don't have a therapist we can talk to right now but this conversation has made me restart our efforts of finding one.
So overall, I'm looking for advice for how to deal with this sort of internalized misogyny when dealing with alters, which I'm kinda at a loss for because of the dissociative barriers... It also doesn't help that I don't have specific examples of what the misogynistic behaviour was.. Any advice helps, and sorry if this was worded badly, I don't write many posts like this.
Thanks for any help
- Phin (He/Him)
Hello! I've been learning Mandarin Chinese since this past september, and I've been doing it through university courses. I completed the elementary mandarin course, and have to wait about 5 months until I get back to school to continue learning mandarin.
Does anyone have any good exercises, activities, etc. to do between classes? I've considered getting a private tutor, but I get scholarships for doing language learning at university so I can't do too much learning outside of it.
I have been playing an rpg in Chinese and have been practicing translating the dialogue and stuff (which is going pretty okay and I'm learning some new words and grammar and stuff, and its good practice) but its very slow and mind-intensive. Any thoughts or ideas appreciated
谢谢！😄