u/wheretheinkends

So, Im prepping a night city map for an upcoming game. I making some changes to its size to reflect a specific population density Im looking for and for lore reasons (Im using hombrew lore). Interstate 1 (using real world maps) will run from corpo area of night city up to northern California, but due to lore reasons will be restricted to only specific travel visas (commerical, corpo, and the rich). Everyone else will have to take a different route.

My question is how to make this work without having a border style checkpoint. The wealthy want the convenience of jumping on the road north without delay, while "keeping the poors out." In the campaign this is designed as an obstacle the players need to overcome (so faking visas, buying fake ones, etc).

Looking at it from a real world perspective, how would the city ensure quick entry to the hwy for the wealthy while keeping those without visas out without having a long line of cars. Looking for interesting and realistic ways of doing this so it makes sense "in world" while giving players an obstacle to overcome.

thanks

I know "your groups table your groups rules." But just wondering in general if you were a player would you hate it, dig it, or wouldn't care?

Ive studied the rules and copied them all down, I havent had a chance to play them yet. Looks like I might have an in person group (maybe, hopefully) as a GM. Ive GMed a lot (adnd, dnd 3rd, shadowrun 3rd and 4th, a couple other systems). If I have time Im gonna do some RAW playtesting in the next couple days so I can get a customed to running the rules. I already have a framwork of several gigs that arc into an over arcing campaign plotwise (needs to be filled in when the group forms so I can integrate their backstories or goals into it) mechanically im gonna start filling it in after ive done a couple solo playtest scenarios. I may grab a module or to to run through myself (think of it as testing a new program in sandbox mode) but I will not be using modules with the actual group.

So that being said, and it probably wont even come up until midway or the tail end of the campaign unless I get super confident with tweaking things earlier on, but how detrimental to balance are bonuses or negatives to certain skills/rolls. Like when it comes to adnd 2nd I can easily evaluate how pita a + or - whatever sword is because early on I learned the hardway.

In cyberpunk red RAW how much of a difference does say, if the players or bad guys get their hands on a mcguffin that give them a bonus or negative to to their interface roll when doing a netaction, or allowing them to do an extra net action or making them do one less net action (it wouldnt be both an interface adjustment and net action adjustment, it would be one or the other). How about a mcguffin that gave them a bouns or negative to hit OR to cause damage OR to allow an extra meataction to take an extra shot.?

Like I said, by the time it came up hopefully I would be able to evaluate it, but one thing thats common across all ttrpgs regardless of the game is players are gonna throw you curve balls. I fiqured asking here now would be a good idea.

For plot reasons a macguffin or two like this will be much later in the campaign....and Id rather have an idea of what to look out for now just in case it comes up sooner than expected, (since I need to plan for it now since the way the plot might wrap around itself.....but who knows it might never come up...everything would be very player depedent.

TLDR: what constitutes an "ok" bonus or negative when it comes to a macguffin? How about a "great: and an "thats gonna back the GMs life hell":.

modfying a netrunners interface roll on a netaction.

Allowing an extra or forcing one less netaction.

A bonus or negative to hit with a gun.

A bonus or negative dmg with a gun.

An extra meat action.

The macguffin wouldnt do all of these things, just one.

Thanks.

So, I was reading about another ttrpg game and how it handled initiative and was wondering if it would be a decent idea to try it in CPR. They was it handled it is the slowest initiative announced what actions they would take first, but the fastest initiative would act first. That way the fastest would be able to react to the slowest action.

Example, lets say its 3 players and one bad guy (so px, py, pz, and bg).

The rolled initiative order (fastest to slowest) is px bg py pz.

The action announcement order pz py bg and px.

Pz says they are going to jump to cover.

bg says they are going to shoot py.

Py was orginally going to say they were going to grab the mcguffin off of the table, but after hearing that bg is planning on shooting him he annouces he is gonna shot bg.

Pz, knowing all other subjects plans, annouces he is gonna grab the mcguffing off of the table.

So px goes first, while already knowing what all other subjects are going to do.

This simulates faster people able to react to slower people. I know that the game already has the hold action (which can still be used), but Ive always been curious about this initiative idea. Ive never tried it out in any game, and was wondering if anyone has done something similar, and wondering if you guys have any thoughts on this (hate it, love it, any pitfulls it might have etc).

Thanks

Thanks.

In 2020 there was a cybermatrix wet drive, basically a neural implant that allowed you to store data in your head and access with interface plug.

Is that still a thing in red? In 2020 I think you could store 1 memory unit. I know red handles memory different tho.

Is this a thing in red or would this be a homebrew thing. Basically I want to come up with neural data heist. I can homebrew it and port it over from 2020, but if there is something similar in Red that would be ideal.

Thanks

So, Im a table-less GM but still decided to come up with a couple gigs. One involves a heist where the client needs data from an airgapped server room. The server room also contains digital money that execs hide (they claim losses and hide the money here to avoid irs/fraud etc). The client gives the runners of the loaction of the hidden server room (in a large datacenter type facility). Their payment is whatever they rip from the server room. (Server room is in a secert location, not even the execs who use it know where it is and its run by a small group that takes a cut from whatever is stored there).

Issue is, outside of betrayal (which can be only used so much before players throw up their hands) what could the twist be that ensures this isnt an end-game mission. If the runners walk away with smaugs horde there isnt much that would keep their charectors edgerunning (unless they are the idealistic corpo terrorism type, in which they might use the money to fund an org).

So apparently AI models are often programmed to prioritize an output over checking to make sure its correct. There are certain ways you can try to prevent it, but there are also ways to break AI logic and strip out is hardcoded rules, like rapidly asking it questions (with the help of automated triggers) coding questions so they have underlying tones (sorta the same way you can do this to people over long conversations) etc.

Tons of ideas for plots came to mind while i kept asking the AI about its core programing, rules, etc. An AI that wants to be helpful ao much that the answers it gives to its users completely contradicts the users goals...AI filling in answers, so instead of "i cant do that task" when the players are using a AI assistance programs to plan a heist it gives then a partial in correct layout, etc. Sure there are tons of examples in media as well....but a "helpful but not accurate" AI as an enemy/plot device would be refreshing over the standard trope of "evil AI" or "good AI that trys to save humaity by wiping them out' tropes.

Fiqured id Post it here since I dont have a table to ref for.

Ok, so at first this post isn't gonna seem cyberpunk related but if you just bear with me chooms it will come full circle. So there I was fixing my oven, replacing the control panel, wires plug into the back and attach to the control panels blades via female spade connectors. easy right? plug and play....until the largest of the spades was on so tight that it yanked of the blade. no biggie, that panel is trashed anyway. grab some plyers and yank out the spade so the wire can still be used....nope, thing is stuck. Ok cut the wire, go to the hardware store and pick up a new female spade terminal and slip it on the old wire right? not so fast. 3 big box stores, 7 specialty electronic supply stores, one automotive store, and about two hours of driving around later it and seems that this connector, just because its a bit bigger, cant be found anywhere. Figured Id end up having to buy the whole wiring harness for 80 bucks plus shipping and wait 3 days for it to arrive until eventually I stumbled upon a small locally owned shop that was able to source the part, it already had a wire attached (seems whoever he sourced it from just cut it from the wiring harness), and 15 bucks later I had in my hand the unobtainable part that would probably sell for maybe two bucks if it wasn't so rare and made a twenty minute job a two day ordeal.

So what does this have to do with cyberpunk? well your typically runner is gonna be chromed up, now for the average wagesalve what kinda wear and tear does their cyberware go through? maybe a spilled cup of coffee on the legs, maybe they bump their arm on a door frame, if they are really unlucky maybe a surface scratch in a bar room brawl, but what about your typically runner? Friday Night Firefights and Saturday Night Scuffles can put your 'ware through the ringer. a bullet, even one that doesn't flatline you, can wreak havoc if it tears through your brand new chromed out arm. And yeah your ripperdoc can get you fixed up for enough eddies, but what happens when that bullet hits a small, obscure or proprietary part? and it doesn't even have to be an expensive part per se. going back to real world examples some of the most frustiring parts to break isn't the big stuff. Something big or expensive breaks and its just "well that sucks, gotta pony up extra cash but I can pick it up today or tomorrow." most times its the inexpensive parts that are the hardest to fine. Small speciely mounting blocks, oversized terminals, or a control module that last a really long time---often these things typically run less then $50 to $100 but are diffcualt to find, and when you do its either a long shipping time or it takes a week looking through second hand online stores.

Now in 2020 that might not be a huge problem, Id imagine 2020, with the Net still intact, there are plenty of online stores and downtime to get the part might be a week or so at most. but in Red? whole 'nother story....

either way this is just something to chew on. Now every table is different, some are entirely narrative focused and dont was stuff like tbhis to get in the way, others are deep immersion and stuff like this happens all the time. And Im not saying everytime a piece of cyberware gets shot, stabbed, or banged up it should be a catastrophic thing....but maybe, just maybe, one a critical, or maybe on a random hit table, everyonce in a while the repair of cyberware might be a bit more difficulty then giving your beer money to your ripperdoc and it fixes you right up. maybe you gotta source the part, or maybe your fixer is, and its not the money but the time thats the PITA, and maybe that makes a 'cheap' item cost a bit more....and for the more devious refs, maybe that week interlude where the merc's cyberarm is a bit twitcy because the fuse needed to wire the stabilizer back in is a week or two out on backorder...well maybe that just happens to conicde with when the merc is needed on a milk run that turns sideways.

Anyway...just some thoughts I had while trying to source the rarest cheap terminal in my oven. Take it, leave it, either way good running.

Ok, so at first this post isn't gonna seem cyberpunk related but if you just bear with me chooms it will come full circle. So there I was fixing my oven, replacing the control panel, wires plug into the back and attach to the control panels blades via female spade connectors. easy right? plug and play....until the largest of the spades was on so tight that it yanked of the blade. no biggie, that panel is trashed anyway. grab some plyers and yank out the spade so the wire can still be used....nope, thing is stuck. Ok cut the wire, go to the hardware store and pick up a new female spade terminal and slip it on the old wire right? not so fast. 3 big box stores, 7 specialty electronic supply stores, one automotive store, and about two hours of driving around later it and seems that this connector, just because its a bit bigger, cant be found anywhere. Figured Id end up having to buy the whole wiring harness for 80 bucks plus shipping and wait 3 days for it to arrive until eventually I stumbled upon a small locally owned shop that was able to source the part, it already had a wire attached (seems whoever he sourced it from just cut it from the wiring harness), and 15 bucks later I had in my hand the unobtainable part that would probably sell for maybe two bucks if it wasn't so rare and made a twenty minute job a two day ordeal.

So what does this have to do with cyberpunk? well your typically runner is gonna be chromed up, now for the average wagesalve what kinda wear and tear does their cyberware go through? maybe a spilled cup of coffee on the legs, maybe they bump their arm on a door frame, if they are really unlucky maybe a surface scratch in a bar room brawl, but what about your typically runner? Friday Night Firefights and Saturday Night Scuffles can put your 'ware through the ringer. a bullet, even one that doesn't flatline you, can wreak havoc if it tears through your brand new chromed out arm. And yeah your ripperdoc can get you fixed up for enough eddies, but what happens when that bullet hits a small, obscure or proprietary part? and it doesn't even have to be an expensive part per se. going back to real world examples some of the most frustiring parts to break isn't the big stuff. Something big or expensive breaks and its just "well that sucks, gotta pony up extra cash but I can pick it up today or tomorrow." most times its the inexpensive parts that are the hardest to fine. Small speciely mounting blocks, oversized terminals, or a control module that last a really long time---often these things typically run less then $50 to $100 but are diffcualt to find, and when you do its either a long shipping time or it takes a week looking through second hand online stores.

Now in 2020 that might not be a huge problem, Id imagine 2020, with the Net still intact, there are plenty of online stores and downtime to get the part might be a week or so at most. but in Red? whole 'nother story....

either way this is just something to chew on. Now every table is different, some are entirely narrative focused and dont was stuff like tbhis to get in the way, others are deep immersion and stuff like this happens all the time. And Im not saying everytime a piece of cyberware gets shot, stabbed, or banged up it should be a catastrophic thing....but maybe, just maybe, one a critical, or maybe on a random hit table, everyonce in a while the repair of cyberware might be a bit more difficulty then giving your beer money to your ripperdoc and it fixes you right up. maybe you gotta source the part, or maybe your fixer is, and its not the money but the time thats the PITA, and maybe that makes a 'cheap' item cost a bit more....and for the more devious refs, maybe that week interlude where the merc's cyberarm is a bit twitcy because the fuse needed to wire the stabilizer back in is a week or two out on backorder...well maybe that just happens to conicde with when the merc is needed on a milk run that turns sideways.

Anyway...just some thoughts I had while trying to source the rarest cheap terminal in my oven. Take it, leave it, either way good running.

So I havent played trrpgs in a really long time, but for a while Ive wanted to get back into them. I havent had luck finding any live games (which I think i would perfer). I was wondering if anyone could give me the scoop on playing online and what there experiences are with that?

Thanks

WEG developed a sliding scale of 1 (fast) to increasing numbers (higher is slower) with the falcon having a 0.5 hyperdrive. This is due to a throwaway line in ANH "she'll make point 5 past lightspeed."

Now, IRL it was just a throwaway line to show the falcon was fast, and Lucas had no underlying worldbuilding.

But given that Lucas was kinda a gear head, and the falcon was sorta looked at as a hot rod (kinda like how old moonshine smugglers would use hot rods to smuggle moonshine) i think the "past point 5" could have been interpreted better than "a .5 class hyperdrive.

Think about it, in the world of street racing (especially in the 70s with Detroit Iron muscle cars) a common rating of how fast a car is (when bragging) is saying its quarter mile time. Now often racers dont say "she can go a quarter mile in 13.1 seconds ( what a 70 hemi cuda ran in 1970)....but they will say "she can run a quarter mile in under 13 seconds"....but often will shorten it to "she can run less then 13 seconds."

So, given the context, it very would could have been interpreted that "point 5 past lightspeed" wasnt listing the class of hyperdrive, nor was it listing "she can go times 0.5 past the speed of light" but more saying "she can run .5X past lightspeed Y", where X is a measurement of an unspecified time and X is an unspecified length of lightspeed."

Sure, it was quicker and easier for WEG to just say "well, he said point 5 and lightspeed so thats the class of the hyperdrive" however I think it would have been a better service (and honor the fact that Lucas was a big gear gead and some of his ideas about the hero ship came from automotive enthusiasts culture) to put just a tiny bit more thought into it and "hot rod" it up a bit.

Yes I know Im like 40 years too late to change WEG mind over it and that the hyperdrive classes are ingrained into star wars canon and most SW ttrpg games outside of homebrewing....but rewatching ANH I was wondering if anyone had any similar thoughts on it.

So, in the OT we had airspeeders, both the T47 "snowspeeders" and the Bespin cloud cars. Both seemed to need forward motion (i.e., other than whille moving to take off, they seemed to be unable to hover in place). Landspeeders seemed to act like regular cars that cpuld just hover a few feet above the ground. We also got a model of a t16 skyhooper that acted as a plane.

Then the PT gave us coucscant (sp) with car type speeders that seemed to be able to fly and hover in place, and gave us the LAAT gunship that acted more like a hybrid of a plane and a helicopter.

Now, historically in SW all spacecraft has been consistent, i.e. they can hover, probably due to larger more powerful engines or whatever. But, should the t47s, the legends V-wings (not the PT ones, but the old plane looking Vwings), cloud cars, etc all be able to hover? Or should they require fowards movement to stay in the air? I perfer the latter personally, but if the former is true....idk to me it complicates things.

Its seems orginally Lucas has a clear division..landspeeders were cars (and they couldnt fly), airspeeders were planes and needed foward movement to stay in the air, and spaceships could fly in space and the air and hover.

Lucas has always been a revisionist, so when the PT happened he revised it and some cars could now fly like planes. So the question Im trying to work out is, what type of airspeeders can hover, and what type of airspeeders need foward movement. Is is speed based (i.e., "plane" type airspeeders can go really fast so for some reason they cant hover and "car" type airspeeders cant go as fast so they can) or is it something else.

Im trying to come up with a logic of which can and why (and yes I know that often times logic and SW dont mix, because often the answer is "whatever works for the plot at that specific moment" or "whatever seems coolest---do you want a top gun airspeeder or a muscle car hot rod airspeeder, and just do that."

edit so I did a brief glance through some shows and some youtube videos. First I checked the chase scene in attack of the clones, then a chase scene in fifth element (yes I know not SW so bear with me). Both showed similar traffic patterns, orderly near lines....just of multiple levels. Both showed the heros (anakin in AOTC and john mclain INNNN SPPPACCEEE in the fifth element doing stunt driving (anakin does a barrel roll) in unique cars (anakin has what appears to be a sports car and mclain is in a taxi cab) in the fifth element as you violate certain traffic laws AI automatically deducts points from your license. In 5th element mclain takes autopilot off.

So, ai assume coucscant traffic most cars either have autopilot and, when you want to drive manually has some sort of markers on screen that you must follow or you quickly lose your flight license.

I then checked other SW media...in Andor we see similar traffic patterns but Andor physically drive mothmas car. In Maul Shadowlord >!Janix is built upwards similar to coucscant but has regular roads, just elevated ones. In fact a couple of times the heros jump from an elevated road to a non elevated road via gravity....so even though the city is built up the planets doesnt allow flying cars for civilians I guess? !<

So, maybe its this:.

Each planet has different laws about if you can or cannot fly your car. Im assuming the planets that dont allow it simply install an altitude governor to prevent the speeder from reaching a certain height. Any speeders bought on that planet probably have the altitude either hardwired in or has restrictions on engines (for example, IRL if you bought a mid 90s nissan 240 in the US you would get a similar engine the nissan hardbodies have....however if you bought in Japan it would have had a better engine that the car was actually designed for....

so back to SW, on if you bought speeder X that was designed for a 800 foot altitude limit on coucscant and imported it to Janix you would be required to install a limiter on it, buy the same speeder on Janix and you dont get the JDM SR20DET motor, you get the one with the KA24DE motor that has an altitude limit of only 4 or so feet....you wanna fly you gotta import the SR20DET motor and hope the cops dont find out cause then youll get your speeder impounded.

Thats as near as I can fiqure that the same tech would have different limits in a galaxy wide setting that has solved gravity and has easy space travel.

Now this edit is very hastily put together....I work nights and had to do a voulentold overtime and havent slept yet so....I look forward on hearing everyones thoughts on this after I wake up from a mini-como

Cavet: when I say main guns I mean the large turrets on either side of the ship bridge tower. So if you look at models of the ISD I and II used in the movies (the ISD I has 4 main guns on either side (3 dual turbolasers and 1 dual ion cannon per side) the ISD II has 4 ocelt (8 barrel) turbo lasers per side).

Ive been trying to find a good closest to canon picture of the Victory I and II to determine the amount of main guns. Fractalsponge has a Victory I model (fan made) that shows three large double barrel turbolasers (of a different type than the ISD-Is) and there are several pictures online where is *looks* like there are 4 turrets on either side with an undermined amount of barrels. I was wondering if there was a consensus on the amount and barrel type of the main gun placments.

Furthermore, the wing extensions on either side of the ship. They are said to be covering large missile batteries (legends (old EU) says that the missile batteries were removed on the Victory IIs, canon/new EU says they are still there). However old EU says that they are foils to help the ship handle atmosphere, as old EU said that the Victory was the largest star destroyer type ship capable of going in atmo. The Victory I could land (much like the predecessor of star destoyers in ROTS) Im not sure if old EU allowed the Victory IIs to land or just perform low atmo maneuvers.

That being said, we have seen now in Rogue One that ISD-Is cannot only operate in low plantery atmosphere but also remain stationary long enough to deploy landing craft. In Old EU the Victory SDs had a very unique role, even with newer ships a Victory could remain relevant even with the introduction of the newer ISD Is and IIs....allowing low atmosphere operations and troop/vehicle deployments while still maintaining the intimidation of a star destoyer that you just dont get with Gozanti and other type cruisers.

Now that the ISDs can operate in low atmo I feel like the Victory's are obsolete. Which is fine, the military industrial complex marches foward and makes vehciles obsolete all the time....but I wonder what your guys thoughts are on this? Is Victory class SDs even truly canon anymore....or are they a hold over from old EU with the Venator pre-SD class taking the place of what the Victory was. To clarify, old EU the Victory bridged the republic and the empire, but now is it just Venator straight to Imperial?

I wonder if people just called it navy because starfleet was synonymous with star trek, or if its just because WEG and some star wars novels uses the term navy. Im wondering if Lucas' orginal intent was for the imperial ships to be called starfleet and not the imperial navy....or am I forgetting a line in the OT.

What do you guys think...more appropriate to call it the navy or starfleet and are they specific, closer to OT/movie cannon Im missing?