I know! The whole site is mostly D&D focused - if you have not figured it out, Truncheons and Flagons is a play on the sound of Dungeons and Dragons... and if you have not figured it out by now, welcome to the site for your first post. D&D is the first RPG I ever played, just like the majority of people who play RPGS, which is no surprise, but is by far not my only interest when it comes to RPGs. For sci-fi flavored games, I currently prefer Planet Mercenary which is based on Howard Tayler's excellent Schlock Mercenary webcomic. For Western/steampunk games, I prefer Deadlands, and not the d20 based version of that game, but the original version. For comic book-like superhero games, I like Champions the most. And when it comes to dystopic sci-fi noir, Cyberpunk 2020 is my jam. Oh, I started in Shadowrun, as most did because I think they had better advertising and was more kid friendly, but found I liked the cyberpunk nature of the setting, though I could do without the fantasy elements inherent to it. In fact, I like CP2020 so much that out of all the RPGs and tabletop wargames that I have purchased books on over the years, I have sold most of them, but the CP2020 books I have kept the longest. And quite a large collection it is, though not complete but nearly so.
Cyberpunk, as a genre of fiction, began with the publication of Neuromancer by William Gibson... you know what, this podcast episode came out recently that describes the history of cyberpunk better than I can off the top of my head. If you are not familiar with the fantastic podcast GM Word of the Week, well, shame on you. Either way, please go listen to their episode on the word Punk, and come back afterwards.
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| Glory in my collection while you listen to GM Word of the Week. |
Back? Good. As the title of the post suggests, they are making a new edition of Cyberpunk 2020, called Cyberpunk Red. This will be the, um, hang on a second, let me make sure I get this right. The first in the series was actually Cyberpunk 2013, then CP2020, followed by Cybergeneration, then Cyberpunk 2030, also known as v3, and now Cyberpunk Red. All have used pretty much the same system, so it's been less of a massive rewrite/revision of the previous edition so much as each is a slight tweak and update to the rules, while making major changes to the setting and events, and Cyberpunk Red promises much of the same.
If you are wondering whether or not CP2020 is for you, let me do a little explaining. Combat in CP2020 is deadly dangerous in combat, as it was based on FBI and police data on gunfights and the resultant gunshot wounds. There are also no classes in CP2020 like there is in D&D, the baseline for these types of things. You can create a character with a hint of this and a dash of that, though usually most players tend to focus on one thing and fill in their gaps with other player characters. Not quite as exciting, but it is definitely a different kind of progression system than most roleplayers are used to, very much functional but nothing like D&D. The world setting itself is about as messed up as you can envision it, high tech opposed by world dystopia, where governments have mostly crumbled and corporations pretty much run everything when they are not busy squabbling amongst themselves. And there you sit, at the edges of everything and struggle to get what you can from the leftovers and crumbs of bigger fish than you. Makes me all tingly just thinking about it.
Sadly, that is about all I have to say about that, at the moment. I have been very excited by the news of Cyberpunk 2077 the videogame coming out, as there has been several good Shadowrun games in the past (the first was on the Sega Genesis, imagine how long ago that was) but never really a good CP2020 related game until now. And now I am excited to see them updating to the new Red ruleset. Why even bother with this, then? In the leadup to Red coming out (in like two weeks, I know, but it'll be months before I pick it up and maybe even longer before I get to play it), I wanted to share some of the things I did in CP2020 back when I was playing it regularly. It will help me get ready for the new rules and world setting. Mostly the world setting, as rules are rules and all, but the feel of the world and all of the conflict points exist that are the important bits. Funny, I know, since I talk more about 5e's rules more than I talk about the setting, but that's because my 5e game setting was made by me. Kind of pointless to make it and not like it, now isn't it?
In addition to all of that, I am looking forward to seeing what Red has to offer. The last campaign of CP2020 I ran, well before the era of handheld computers disguised as cell phones (ie: smart phones, or, The Thing I Have Used to Type Much of This Post), and still did a lot of tweaking to the Netrunner class to make it not boring, and Red seems to have improved on it in a similar fashion. In fact, most of the changes I made in that game to Netrunners almost 2 decades ago, a thing I called "Netrunner magic", I made up mostly on the fly. Just last year I started codifying some of those changes, put my thoughts down in a document just so I could make them more solid. It is an odd coincidence that Master Mike Pondsmith has beat me to that punch, but one I am glad to see. Admittedly, what we're seeing in the early reports for Red is not exactly what I was doing but still SSSOOOO much better than what netrunning was in CP2020. Oh, and I was calling it "Netrunner magic" because the base purpose is to make the Netrunner more like a D&D wizard - instead of boring, drawn out deep dives of a nearby computer, make using programs like casting spells. The Netrunner describes their desired results - open the security door - and instead of hunting through the corp's mainframe for the security node, fighting or fleeing from ICE the whole way, the computer system makes a save versus the Netrunner's skill, and if the save fails, the security door opens. The cameras turn off, or start feeding into the 'runner's cortex so he can see what they see. The alarm stops sounding. The auto-defenses turn on the guards. All outside communication gets shut down. And so on. Make it fast, make it snappy, and keep the 'runners in the game with the rest of the players.
Okay, I am going to call that good for now. More updates as I think about this stuff. And after today's 5e session, I may be running them through a one shot, just to see if they like it. These posts may be coming more frequently.
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