u/Future_Client_9161

As the title mentions, I want to get back into running Cyberpunk RED, and am trying to learn from the last time I ran the system. Any and all GM-ing advice would be gladly appreciated, even if it doesnt address some of my specific issues.

My major thing is I am really bad about pacing, how often the party should be landing solid gigs, how long they should get to plan, how to handle down time, etc.

I've found that many players are TERRIBLE at handling free time in TTRPGs. I tried to run my first ever Cyberpunk game very much as a sandbox, where the crew could go anywhere and do anything, but they quickly found that "Uhh I don't know" was their favorite answer, so I shifted the game to be more narrative in focus. They also suck at information gathering and formulating solid plans (though maybe that's just my group of morons friends). I don't want to just say "you're getting 7 days of downtime now, how do you spend it" because that takes away their agency and removes the idea that something surprising might happen in that span, but also I've seen that decision paralysis a million billion times.

The other thing I could use some help with is just eliminating ludo-narrative dissonance. In my head the ideal cyberpunk game has the crew as a team of edgerunner mercenaries in the way of V, Jackie, and Bug (before the tower heist) or Maine/David's crew from Edgerunners. Obviously if my players wanted to do a different type of team I would gladly change it for them. But sometimes I struggle at making them feel like a cohesive whole without being repetitive. I want everyone to get to use their skills (the old "shoot the monk" adage) but it can feel kind of shoehorned in. What if one character just really doesnt add much to a particular type of mission? I don't want to exclude them or make them feel useless. Sometimes 1 character needs therapy but everyone else needs to pay bills, do I have them make a temporary alternate PC who they then have to abandon later? What if the Medtech wants to moonlight for some corp or ripper or something, are there rules for that?

Again, any advice, even unrelated, is appreciated. With 5e I learned from playing, but the 1 time I got to play cyberpunk red was sadly short lived, and while I can find DMs/GMs for other games, I seem to be the only guy I know running RED, so learning as a player is off the table sadly.

In the core rule book for RED, on page 321 in the "What You're Packing" section, under the heading "Old Guns Still Work" there's a line that says "The tough part is finding ammunition; most modern guns are now caseless and if you have an old gun, you're going to have to load your own."

But in the 12 Days of Gunmas DLC the Nova Model 757 City Hunter Description says: "An unusual double-action design from Nova Arms, the Cityhunter is a revolver that strays from regular conventions in several ways, but mainly in that it fires caseless trounds"

So what the hell is it? Are caseless rounds conventional or not? Anyone got J Gray on speed dial?

Edit: Thank you for correcting me that it says Trounds (as in triangular rounds). I still find it odd that they needed to specify they are caseless, since thats the norm in 2045 Saying "it breaks from conventions because it uses triangular rounds" would have sufficed IMO