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Snorb posted:They touch on it later on, but the primary fuel for most vehicles in CP2020 is an alcohol called CHOOH (pron. "chew"). Formic acid is kind of a silly fuel but okay! I found Cyberpunk V3 was just not very fun in the post Whoops “can’t believe anything and the city is destroyed, enjoy picking through the remains” setting.
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Mar 3, 2019 02:58
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Snorb posted:Wait a minute. Keep in mind that 60 points in attributes is, according to the game, a "minor supporting character." I showed a little restraint with the skills to at least keep them in line with the background I rolled up, but in practice the game discourages spreading starting skills with two mechanics. We've already seen the first one, the very slow skill progression. We'll get to the other reason in two updates.
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Mar 3, 2019 03:33
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And you haven't even touched cyberware yet. There is some Fun Stuff there that'll make Jamie even more of a nightmare.
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Mar 3, 2019 04:27
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Snorb posted:Wait a minute. I said "Solos win fights" earlier, and I meant it. Combat in Cyberpunk 2020 is very rocket-taggy, and a Solo will go first. They likely have a high Reflex, a high Combat Reflexes, cyberware like Adrenal Boosters that gives them bonuses on top of that, likely have more Reflexes and enhancements than you do, and some ridiculous gun that's farcically good at putting holes in people. Snorb posted:EDIT: and of *course* you max out Body and Empathy. Good Lord. As I said directly to the Pondsmiths, "making a high-cyberware character is a process of taking the kindest, most charming character you can imagine and crushing their soul".
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Mar 3, 2019 04:36
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I said "Solos win fights" earlier, and I meant it. Combat in Cyberpunk 2020 is very rocket-taggy, and a Solo will go first. They likely have a high Reflex, a high Combat Reflexes, cyberware like Adrenal Boosters that gives them bonuses on top of that, likely have more Reflexes and enhancements than you do, and some ridiculous gun that's farcically good at putting holes in people.
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Mar 3, 2019 04:55
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you do run into a sort reverse angel summoner/bmx bandit problem, where the solo can ice any regular enemy and threats set up to challenge them just mulch everyone else.
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Mar 3, 2019 05:07
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I mean, ditto for what many classes do, the main issue is that classes like Solos and Netrunners have big dominant systems they get to just win at. In theory, something like the Nomad being able to call in thirty biker buddies to run you over as soon as you try and cross the street should be terrifying, but you need your GM to nod along with that. You can't just point at the math in the book letting you dictate who dies.
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Mar 3, 2019 06:36
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if only the game had a fear mechanic, then the cop could shout people to death. full disclosure, i have played a buttload of cyberpunk 2020, and had a great time. kind of impossible to ignore the cracks these days.
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Mar 3, 2019 09:47
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Snorb posted:Wait a minute. CP2020 was very much a product of the time "role-playing not roll-playing" that shows up in Siembedia's RIFTS. I feel that you never really supposed to be using point-buy, it was all supposed to be just roll your stats and  But, when dealing with NPCs or in a point-buy game, it became really obnoxious to see a lot of REF 10+, which is supposed to be like Olympic gymnast level of agility. Like one in a million people should naturally have REF 10. What's hilarious is that every combat class introduced after the core book was really just some sort of "Solo but..." with a really specified version of Combat Sense that only worked in power armor, airplanes, panzers, etc. I think were also forgetting that Combat Reflexes added to Awareness as well, so forget about laying in wait from the shadows because you'd get spotted post-haste and never get the element of surprise from a Solo. And this was a change over CP2013, where Combat Sense didn't add to initiative (since in original FNFF, initiative and turn order was flatly determined by REF score alone, making reflex boosters dangerous and ambushes more effective), it added to Athletics, which doubled as dodge skill. This would make high-level CP2013 solos almost impossible to hit unless artificially-elevated precision or area effect weapons were arrayed against them. FMguru posted:As broken as this is in a lot of ways, I have to say I like the novelty of a game where the designated fighter class is actually really really good at straightforwardly winning fights. The only problem is that there was no real mooks until CPv3.0. Every NPC was statted out and given a combat class, so if you were Johnny Rockerhand and tried to cold-cock a paid-hourly security guard, the security guard has Combat Sense and would pull out his gun and interrupt Johnny before he could get his fist in his face. It came down that many of the mooks had Combat Sense, however minor, but in a game where Solos can only beat Solos, it basically sidelined a whole lot of characters. Or you got smart quick and engaged them from other angles, like put them in timed-delay circumstances that they can't kill you, take hostages, had the Netrunner commander so net-linked equipment and flatten them with a bulldozer, etc. Alien Rope Burn posted:I mean, ditto for what many classes do, the main issue is that classes like Solos and Netrunners have big dominant systems they get to just win at. In theory, something like the Nomad being able to call in thirty biker buddies to run you over as soon as you try and cross the street should be terrifying, but you need your GM to nod along with that. You can't just point at the math in the book letting you dictate who dies. Yeah, I remember being on the Talsorian forums talking about this distinction but couldn't eloquently come up with it. I think I referred to stuff like Combat Senses, Interface as "personal" perks and Resources, Family as "social" or "group" perks. I think now, it's clearly Mechanical Bonus vs. Narrative Bonus, you either get an additive bonus that highly influences your rolls or it's a roleplaying intervention that changes the story being told. CPv3.0 did a smart thing by essentially getting rid of Classes altogether and making the perks available to everyone, so it made build your company man as Corporate Solo or fighter hobo as Solo Nomad. thatbastardken posted:if only the game had a fear mechanic, then the cop could shout people to death. The games I played in featured a whole lot of house-ruling, so that clouds a lot of my judgement. I recall that our group basically gave authority a bonus to Intimidation and Interrogation, so it became really effective in shutting people down or extracting information.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:00
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If Ref 10+ is extremely powerful and you can take Ref 10+ freely, no matter what it's meant to mean in fluff you're going to see it a lot in play, after all. Just how games work.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:07
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Night10194 posted:If Ref 10+ is extremely powerful and you can take Ref 10+ freely, no matter what it's meant to mean in fluff you're going to see it a lot in play, after all. Just how games work. I think they were talking about statted NPCs, not PCs.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:19
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Joe Slowboat posted:I think they were talking about statted NPCs, not PCs. Similar, though, because now you have to challenge the party Solo.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:20
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Technically point buy is not allowed for PCs, even though all the rules to make it work are right there, but you can roll 9d10 and get a point total, meaning some PCs will be straight up better no matter what. If I had to restat Jamie to a 9d10 average (50 points), I'd save points in MA (don't need to run fast if you have a high powered rifle), a bit in Intelligence (which is really there to max pick up skills more than anything)...and Empathy. As we'll soon see, you don't need to sacrifice that much Humanity to reach the "I Win" Button.
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Mar 3, 2019 18:46
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Joe Slowboat posted:I think they were talking about statted NPCs, not PCs. I'm mostly talking about NPCs, yeah, because that largely influenced a lot of CP2020 to max out REF despite if they used it or not. Night10194 posted:Similar, though, because now you have to challenge the party Solo. Yeah, it basically sets off a REF race to get the highest REF. I'm refreshing myself with the Corpbooks, since those have the largest collection of mooks, and all those guys tend to be built on 60 attribute points, the "Minor Supporting Character" as described in the corebook. The exception is in the Petrochem entry, both their normal guards and elite spec-ops guys are built using around 70 points (or "Major Supporting Character"). Looking ahead, to Home Of The Brave and Stormfront, the Regular Army Soldiers, the epitome of "grunt", are at least built under 50 points and a Combat Sense of +3, but generally, most of your mook type characters are going to be made using the 60 point system and I'm not even getting into perks and skills, because start expecting at least Combat Sense +5 and relevant combat skills of +4 even for your low-level, public-facing security guards, not your high-threat response or corp ninja types. SirPhoebos posted:Technically point buy is not allowed for PCs, even though all the rules to make it work are right there, but you can roll 9d10 and get a point total, meaning some PCs will be straight up better no matter what. I was just looking into this and the Fast version would give you the most points because it's 1D10 for each stat, drop anything 2 or lower, meaning the average is around 6.5 per roll, so 65-70 points would be the expected outcome. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Mar 3, 2019 |
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Mar 3, 2019 19:10
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Young Freud posted:I was just looking into this and the Fast version would give you the most points because it's 1D10 for each stat, drop anything 2 or lower, meaning the average is around 6.5 per roll, so 65-70 points would be the expected outcome. The only downside is that you can't freely allocate points. But you're right, the fast method would get you a higher average. The real reason I used the "Ref Only" method was because I think rolling for stats is bullshit and if there is an obvious way to avoid it, particularly when it's presented with all the PC-facing information, I'm going to use it. SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Mar 3, 2019 |
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Mar 3, 2019 19:27
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SirPhoebos posted:The only downside is that you can't freely allocate points. But you're right, the fast method would get you a higher average. The real reason I used the "Ref Only" method was because as a modern gamer I think rolling for stats is bullshit and if there is an obvious way to avoid it, particularly when it's presented with all the PC-facing information, I'm going to use it. It's also a modern gamer thing to have the characters start off a step better than the mook-type character, which is why I'm comparing the difference between PCs and NPCs and the whole REF arms race. It's the difference between modern gaming's concept of PCs being "big drat heroes" vs. early TRPGs' setting up "magical Vietnam" because, even with the house ruling, I ended up in often were the second one in my primary group's Cyberpunk 2020 games that I basically quit playing until the GM realized that wasn't an optimal play style. It was hard to look at the survivors of those games, with long-lived characters and in-game stories, and realize that I wasn't one of those because of a poo poo roll.
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Mar 3, 2019 19:37
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Young Freud posted:It's also a modern gamer thing to have the characters start off a step better than the mook-type character, which is why I'm comparing the difference between PCs and NPCs and the whole REF arms race. It's the difference between modern gaming's concept of PCs being "big drat heroes" vs. early TRPGs' setting up "magical Vietnam" because, even with the house ruling, I ended up in often were the second one in my primary group's Cyberpunk 2020 games that I basically quit playing until the GM realized that wasn't an optimal play style. It was hard to look at the survivors of those games, with long-lived characters and in-game stories, and realize that I wasn't one of those because of a poo poo roll. I guess the point I was going for was that according to CP2020, 60 points isn't a Big drat Hero. It's a minor supporting character. In CP2020, the Major Heroes have a stat total of 80. That's nearly a 9 average for stats! With that many points selecting characters strengths and "weaknesses" is basically a joke. EDIT: I have to assume that very few people followed the Fumble Rules because they basically make long-lived characters impossible. RAW, it means even the most munchkin character is eventually going to have a combat round where they do nothing and everyone gets a free shot at them. SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 3, 2019 |
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Mar 3, 2019 20:14
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PurpleXVI posted:Rikkit'tik feels like he has extremely strong potential as a supporting cast NPC in any game with a bit of mild humour. He'd be a good token mercenary PC from an evil race, who just claims he's a hairy dwarf to NPCs and always suggest murder as the solution to PC problems
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Mar 3, 2019 21:11
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NutritiousSnack posted:He'd be a good token mercenary PC from an evil race, who just claims he's a hairy dwarf to NPCs and always suggest murder as the solution to PC problems I'm imagining him more as a Skaven who understands PC's very well and gets them to do stuff by putting innocuous ads in the papers and never meeting them face to face. "WILL PAY $$$ 4 WYVERN BITS & SPIDER CHUNKS." Because PC's are never gonna question a source of money on what he actually needs all those venomous monster bits for.
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Mar 3, 2019 21:14
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SirPhoebos posted:EDIT: I have to assume that very few people followed the Fumble Rules because they basically make long-lived characters impossible. RAW, it means even the most munchkin character is eventually going to have a combat round where they do nothing and everyone gets a free shot at them. I will freely admit that I never lasted long enough for the games to go "full anime".
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Mar 3, 2019 21:23
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 Part 5: “someone who is good at the economy help me budget this. my family is dying” “spend less on assault rifles” “no”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS7k3G_6IjE Like so many RPGs from the late eighties and early nineties, CP2020 has a huge rear end equipment section, and that’s before we get to the cyberwear. Not all of these are weapons, or even role-specific gear like cyberdecks and musical instruments. No, it’s important that we know how much lamps and movie rentals cost. There is a small mercy provided in that they list out a travel kit that every character ought to have (even the Corporate - you never know when you’ll get be stuck in an airport). But you’re still expected to buy every piece of this “outfit” and you get no prices up front for this stuff. That said, the game knows what’s important, and the guns and other weapons are first. But before any of that we need to see how much money you have. (The currency, btw, is the Eurobuck (eb), which is used everywhere). As said earlier, your starting budget is determined by your Special Ability rank, and it’s a huge difference. Let’s take the Solo as an example. A Combat Sense of 5 or less leaves you with a budget of 2,000 a month. A Combat Sense of 7 gives you 4,500 a month. At 10, you get 12,000/month. And all the roles are like this, your starting funds basically double every two additional points past 5. The exception is the Nomad, because you get poo poo for starting funds compared to everyone else. Even at Family 10, the Nomad only gets 5,000/month. You may have noticed that “per month”. That’s there because players also roll 1d6/3 to determine the number of months “you’ve currently been employed” and also act as a multiplier to your starting funds. So hypothetically the starting fund disparity can be even greater. With Jamie, I’ll be assuming she has 1 month to spend.. Lastly, we roll a 1d6. On a 5 or a 6, we just got unemployed. Which..okay trying to scrape by is a common plot point in this genre and one we can all relate to. The problem is that certain characters don’t really work without being part of an organization, while others seem weird as gently caress with a regular job. A Fixer with 10 Streetdeal is making 10k a month, but any thought about this character should tell us that he’s not depending on a regular job to earn that cash. On the other side, what does Authority mean for an unemployed Cop? Sure becoming a P.I. and doing CyberNoir sounds fun, but the Special Ability doesn’t really support that.  no, this isn’t available in this section With money taken care of, let’s talk about the gear. CP2020 makes another nod to sanity by saying that in most cases encumbrance won’t matter, and rather than list out individual encumbrances it gives weight groups if the Referee really wants to track how much characters can carry. Now for what we’ve all been waiting for... Weapons Weapons are broken up into basic categories to determine what skill is used for them. The categories are Handguns, Submachineguns, Shotguns, Rifles, Heavy Weapons, Melee, and Exotic. Shotguns use the Rifle skill, while exotics are actually an assortment of experimental weapons like lasers and stuff, and the skill for them varies from weapon to weapon. All weapons have the following stats:
After this is explained, we get a big honking list of very similar weapons. 10 different handguns, 8 different submachine guns, 4 different rifles. Sometimes the only difference is a change in the reliability value and a different price. There are some weapons that are flat out better than another in every respect, even price. In short, it’s a 90s weapon list. (We only get two shotguns, and one is an auto-shotgun) The Heavy and Exotic Weapons at have move variety. We get a 20mm cannon that doesn’t actually do more damage on average than the heavier assault rifles. The Missile Launcher and Rocket Powered Grenades at least have substantial spikes in damage. We get grenades and explosives, and a Flamethrower for the fans of The Exterminator starring Robert Ginty. For exotic weapons, we start with a microwave gun, which is the type of weapon that will crush everything the first session it’s used in, then become completely worthless because the PCs and Referee will always include the no-fail defense against it. There’s a laser rifle, which has special rules that prevent it from being a PCs main weapon but can at least be cool for a scene where you use it in a weapons lab or something. There are three ways of delivery drugs (needle gun, squirt gun, and paint gun), a ranged taser. And finally we have the stats for composite bows and crossbows, which I assume are here solely because of Rambo. Along with ranged weapons, we also get melee weapons. We get street thug weapons for reenacting scenes from The Warriors (except one side has high powered rifles). And we also get a variety weapons for Ninjas, like nunchucks, “shiriken” (sic), and...Naginata? O-okay. And we also get futuristic melee weapons. Monoblades and Battlegloves. The Monoblade comes in knife and katana form. The Battleglove has some additional rules beyond doing more damage punching and crushing, but we’ll get to that later. Lastly we have a selection of “old guns” for the player who insists on using the exact weapon from his favorite action movie. Generally these guns have half the cost of comparable future weapons, but their ammo costs twice as much because they don’t use caseless ammo. The only standout of the old weapons is the Winchester M70, being the only gun in this book with a +3 accuracy. The time has come to pick out Jamie’s gun. Unlike RIFTS where the Boom Gun more or less remains King poo poo (as of ARB’s review of Worldbook 23), the power creep in damage dealing is very real in Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. If I cover the supplements, I may give Jamie a reboot to show other ways of breaking the combat. Right now, we’re going to pick a weapon that’s not even on the main list, but was pulled from a Cyberpunk 1.0 sourcebook, Solo of Fortune. There’s a picture of this weapon, along with the stats to use it.  Jamie’s strategy in combat is simple: Headshots. The Sternmeyer has a +1 to accuracy, which will be important not just for negating the called shot penalty, but for taking full advantage of the auto-fire rules. Like all rifles, it can’t be concealed. It does 5d6 damage, which averages 17 to 18; not the highest damage for a rifle, but it’ll be enough for my purposes. The real kicker is the ammo capacity and ROF. It’s the highest ROF in the core book, It’s very reliable, so jamming is at a minimum. Finally, it has a range of 400 meters, like all rifles. This is important because base difficulty to hit is derived from the range of the weapon. There aren’t really any rules for modding weapons in the core book with one exception. Making a gun a smartgun (ie usable with cyber enhancements and targeting scopes) costs twice it’s base cost. The benefit is that with cybernetic enhancements you can get up to +2 bonus to your hit roles (possibly +3 depending on how you interpret the rules). That brings the cost of the Sternmeyer to 2100 eb. Guns need ammo, and we have different prices for all the different weapon sizes. Assault rifle rounds cost 40 eb for a box of 100. I don’t want regular rounds. I want AP. That will triple the cost of ammo. I buy 3 boxes of AP rounds (360) and 2 boxes of regular (80) so I don’t have to waste the good ones. Armor The next section is armor. Armor received a number of rules changes not just between editions, but between the first printing and the one that I’m reading right now. Not all of those are communicated here in the section where the characters are buying equipment. Instead, they’re found in the FNFF chapter. That said, the armor here has three stats that will help me make my purchase decision. The first stat is what parts of the character’s body the armor covers: head, torso, arms, and/or legs. Only one armor covers the entire body. The second stat is the armor’s Stopping Power (SP). SP reduces the damage of all hits. Finally, there’s Encumbrance Value (EV), which is a penalty to the character’s Reflex Stat. EV is cumulative for each piece of armor worn. Lastly, some pieces of armor have a checkmark next to their name, indicating that their SP is half against slashing weapons. We also get the benefit of AP ammo on the table of armor: all SP is halved versus AP damage. I’ll get into all the details in the next couple of updates, but suffice it to say unless you are going for a specific campaign style or are trying to tackle a specific target, investing heavily in armor isn’t worth the penalties. That said, there’s still enough incidental and low tier damage in the game to necessitate some armor. For Jamie, I get the Light Armor Jacket (Torso/Arms, SP 14) and the Nylon Helmet (Head, SP 20). Neither of these have an EV penalty. Together, the two items cost 250eb. Oh, the full body armor is called “MetalGear” and it’s trademarked. Most of the time I would never confuse this book with anything from Palladium, but on occasion...  Special Gear So that takes care of weapons and armor, but there’s one more set of items that are important. One of the big themes of Cyberpunk and the dilemmas characters must face is how much of their humanity they’re willing to sacrifice to get a desperately needed edge in combat. These next three items allow you to do a complete run-around this dilemma. We mentioned the Battleglove in the weapon sections, but it’s more than just a souped up brass knuckle. It has pretty much the same functionality of a Cyberarm except cheaper (900 vs 2000 eb), has 3 slots instead of 4, and can’t get the Hydraulic Ram option. However, the Artificial Shoulder Mount is technically a cyberlimb option, so can you just slap on an extra set of arms without even needing surgery or  Then there’s Smartgoggles, which are again cheaper than getting a Cyberoptic (200 vs 500 eb). You can have 4 options (same as one cyberoptic) with no limitations, and options only cost 90% of their cyber equivalent. The only drawback is you can’t double-up on Smartgoggles, although you are free to switch between pairs. You can even use the targeting scope. Jamie is going to get Smartgoggles with Targeting Scope (+1 to hit with Smartguns), image enhancer (+1 to visual awareness checks), Tele-optics, and Low-Lite. The total package costs 1145 eb) The only option with any sense of a trade off are the Linear Frames, which give improved Body Stat and Deadlift multipliers (x50 as opposed to x40). Riding one like the Aliens Power Loader instead of grafting yourself into one gives a -2 Reflex as opposed to -1. But Linear Frames are so specialized and so expensive anyway that it basically makes no sense to permanently graft yourself to one. Once again, having a Frame you can just link to rather than attaching yourself to it is cheaper. And none of these options have any associated surgery costs. The book does say all these items can be stolen, a dubious balancing mechanic at best. Bullshit So with weapons, armor, and special gear talked about, it’s on to the cybernetics, right? Wrong! What follows is a list of every item a character might conceivably use in the course of the game. To be fair, some of these items are things that are important to certain characters, like tools for Techies and musical instruments for Rockerboys. These are given the same amount of space as items like wood furniture and take-out food. While pretty much every 80s/early 90s RPG was like this, I feel like this goes even further. My only guess was that the only way R.Talsorian thought the only way to simulate the economic pressures and disparities within the Cyperpunk genre was to have players keep track of every single expense like this was a Home Economics class. My first impulse was to just ignore this section entirely, but in the end I decided there were two things Jamie needed no matter how much of a literal murderhobo I wanted to turn her into. First was a cellphone which costs 400 eb (:rofl:) along with service plan that’ll cost 100 eb/month. That’s not a smart phone, by the way. It’s just a phone you can carry with you. The other thing that I bought is a Trauma Team account for 500 eb/month. Trauma Team is one of the conceits of the setting to somewhat blunt the lethality of fights. If the PCs win a gunfight but one of them got heavily shot up, in theory a Trauma Tea evac can keep that player from bleeding out on the way to the drop point or something. That’s 1000 eb dropped on “other”. I otherwise would have spent that money on a backup gun (probably the Auto-shotgun). Right now, Jamie’s backup is going to be whatever was carried by the first person she kills.  phones you can put in your pocket. IT MUST BE THE FUTURE! Between her gun, ammo, armor, special gear, and other crap, Jamie has spent 4,935 eb of her starting funds. But Cybernetics has its own chapter and rules for it. Jamie’s got her gun, but now it’s time she got wired. Next Time: I asked for this SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Mar 5, 2019 |
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Mar 3, 2019 23:15
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And given certain rules regarding damage in Friday Night Firefight, a helmet is an extremely wise investment in CP2020.
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Mar 4, 2019 00:00
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SirPhoebos posted:The time has come to pick out Jamie’s gun. Unlike RIFTS where the Boom Gun more or less remains King poo poo (as of ARB’s review of Worldbook 23), the power creep in damage dealing is very real in Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. If I cover the supplements, I may give Jamie a reboot to show other ways of breaking the combat. Right now, we’re going to pick a weapon that’s not even on the main list, but was pulled from a Cyberpunk 1.0 sourcebook, Solo of Fortune. There’s a picture of this weapon, along with the stats to use it. Yeah, the CG-13 is basically the Best Gun for awhile. Also, it's probably lighter than it looks and shorter than it looks, I have it in my head that N concealable starts at about 30 inches, so the thing is probably a tad smaller than a M4 carbine. I had a friend's character who would shower with the drat thing, like that classic Shadowrun Demotivation Poster, except imagine it's young Brad Pitt/Char Aznable peaking this thing out from a shower curtain. SirPhoebos posted:Oh, the full body armor is called “MetalGear” and it’s trademarked. Most of the time I would never confuse this book with anything from Palladium, but on occasion... MetalGearTM came from Solo Of Fortune as well and it's really a product of it's time. It's funny going through all these books and looking at the illustrations Scott Ruggels and everyone did, because it's clear they came from this from a Vietnam or post-Vietnam military experience. Lots of Kevlar front-opening flak jackets on display, something that's largely been phased-out since the '90s when the PASGT was replaced with the Interceptor. Boron Oxide ceramic "chicken plate" body armor (which is what MetalGearTM supposedly is) was the hottest thing to come out of that conflict, but none could get the weight down to be useful and military planners didn't believe the weight and cost was worth it. It eventually was used in custom body armor by the Rangers in Mogadishu and then an add-on to PASGT in Yugoslavia peacekeeping effort in the '90s (before becoming separated from the Kevlar vest and becoming the modern rifle plate carrier), but it's real-life inspiration's evolution is rarely remarked on during product life of CP2020, except as an addendum in Stormfront as add-on plates. So, MetalGearTM is basically a rifle plate set with drop plates on the legs and shoulder , essentially the Colonial Marine gear or now the modern U.S. infantryman (who leaves off the limb protection because of encumbrance). SirPhoebos posted:The only option with any sense of a trade off are the Linear Frames, which give improved Body Stat and Deadlift multipliers (x50 as opposed to x40). Riding one like the AliensPower Loader instead of grafting yourself into one gives a -2 Reflex as opposed to -1. But Linear Frames are so specialized and so expensive anyway that it basically makes no sense to permanently graft yourself to one. Once again, having a Frame you can just link to rather than attaching yourself to it is cheaper. And none of these options have any associated surgery costs. The book does say all these items can be stolen, a dubious balancing mechanic at best. The biggest change recently is I how, before real life 2013, the go-to mental image for anyone who still played CP2020 was the Aliens Power Loader, but after Elysium (and, by extension, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare), it's now the Exosuit. SirPhoebos posted:T I remember going through the first Chromebook and mentally calculating the cost and weight of a cellphone, the mapreader, the digital bookreader, pocket computer, etc. and then looking at my cheapo refurb LG for the last couple years and going "and I spent $25 bucks on this to get the same effect".
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Mar 4, 2019 00:10
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Alien Rope Burn posted:What it comes down to is that trying to relate an imaginary evil it as the cause of a real evil is a cheap way to try and give it weight. better. I have a lot of problems with the genre and the movie in particular, but Wonder Woman's baddie is actually a good example of how to do this.
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Mar 4, 2019 00:16
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I like how almost every rifle in Cyberpunk is a bullpup frame.
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Mar 4, 2019 01:44
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Halloween Jack posted:I like how almost every rifle in Cyberpunk is a bullpup frame. Because that was considered the future of weapons in the 90's! And still kinda is to many.
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Mar 4, 2019 01:47
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NutritiousSnack posted:I have a lot of problems with the genre and the movie in particular, but Wonder Woman's baddie is actually a good example of how to do this. Wow, this is a flashback. Yeah, I was pretty angry when I wrote that, which is rare for me in F&F. World War I, I think, "benefits" from the actual cause being a Rube Goldberg machine of history that's impossible to easily sum up. So jamming a supernatural influence in there is definitely just... another topping on a sandwich of tragedy. As I said back then, it's not impossible to do, but it helps to relate it to your central themes (which Wonder Woman does) and not necessarily have it be the central cause (ditto).
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Mar 4, 2019 02:05
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Wow, this is a flashback. Yeah, I was pretty angry when I wrote that, which is rare for me in F&F. yeah, I was pretty drat angry in mine, and honestly that's one of the reasons why Wonder Woman works so well, Ares didn't instigated the war, stopping him didn't end it, they just removed an extremely dangerous element that would've made the causalities a whole lot worse.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:10
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Halloween Jack posted:I like how almost every rifle in Cyberpunk is a bullpup frame. It was one of those "'70s-'80s guns" where it was considered the future, with the FA-MAS, the Steyr AUG, and the L85 being adopted. The U.S. military held out and eventually worked out the bugs from the M16, when some of the tactical drawbacks to the L85 became well-known, the big one being spent case ejection, which, while the FAMAS and the AUG can be switched, it can't exactly be done on the fly. Another issue is the widespread acceptance of body armor: apparently, military planners never thought that about armor when designing guns, but ballistic protection adds a good inch or two to your shoulder. During the Iraq War, the adjustable, collapsible stocks like on the M4 were known to be highly adaptable for firing inside and outside of armor, while bullpups tended to relatively long length of pulls (essentially arm length) because they were built around shooting outside of armor, making it awkward to fire. Also, since they already made space a premium due to moving the action to the stock, there's not that much territory to shorten. The Croatian VHS-2 got around it by adding a retractable stock but it hasn't seen a lot of use outside Croatia, so I can't relay anything on how well that works. The L85 ended up poisoning the well for most military acceptance bullpups (the other is the proliferation of the AR-15 since the U.S. basically gives them away to allies), although you've had stuff like the Israeli Tavor, the Singaporean SAR21, the Belgian F2000 and the Croatian VHS series come out since then. The L85 will largely be around for the next few decades, the AUG is now evolving into an AR format rifle (the Steyr STM556) with it's bullpup lineage becoming an Australian breed althogether (the Thales/Lithgow F90), while the FA-MAS is said to be abandoned in favor of the Heckler & Koch HK415, a piston-driven AR. The age of the bullpup has largely ended, but who knows, maybe forward or downward ejection mechanisms will become more popular, convertible rifles like the Polish RADOM and the Singaporean BR-18 see fielding, and the cult of the AR gets broken with waning American power. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Mar 4, 2019 |
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Mar 4, 2019 02:17
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If I remember right, one of the standard weapons in Traveller is an Advanced Combat Rifle that's just a stand-in for all the wondergun designs that were part of the Advanced Combat Rifle project. And later the OICW, I expect.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:29
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Young Freud posted:I remember going through the first Chromebook and mentally calculating the cost and weight of a cellphone, the mapreader, the digital bookreader, pocket computer, etc. and then looking at my cheapo refurb LG for the last couple years and going "and I spent $25 bucks on this to get the same effect".
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Mar 4, 2019 02:32
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Halloween Jack posted:If I remember right, one of the standard weapons in Traveller is an Advanced Combat Rifle that's just a stand-in for all the wondergun designs that were part of the Advanced Combat Rifle project. And later the OICW, I expect. The ACR was meant to be a rifle firing flechettes, which in itself is very sci-fi. Unlike the OICW whose big thing was the programmable grenades on top of a bog standard 5.56 carbine that later on became the failed XM8 project. Young Freud posted:The L85 ended up poisoning the well for most military acceptance bullpups (the other is the proliferation of the AR-15 since the U.S. basically gives them away to allies), although you've had stuff like the Israeli Tavor, the Singaporean SAR21, the Belgian F2000 and the Croatian VHS series come out since then. Also the KH2000 Sama as well as the QBZ-95 as a side note.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:45
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Young Freud posted:-snip- The M16 is a really, really good gun. It has an enduringly bad reputation because of what the bean counters pulled when it was adopted army-wide in Vietnam (ammo with different characteristics that messed up the action, no cleaning kits, etc.) but there's a reason the US has used its derivatives for so long. Even the HK416, which the marines are wholesale adopting, is basically an M16 with a short stroke gas piston instead of direct impingement.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:46
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Halloween Jack posted:If I remember right, one of the standard weapons in Traveller is an Advanced Combat Rifle that's just a stand-in for all the wondergun designs that were part of the Advanced Combat Rifle project. And later the OICW, I expect. You're forgetting the SPIW from the '60s, which is probably the real inspiration and the granddaddy of all those programs you mentioned. A lot of these future warfare ideas have been around longer than you think they have. For instance, the return of bulletproof full-body suits like MetalGearTM has been in the imagination for since the last years of World War 1...  Cooked Auto posted:Also the KH2000 Sama as well as the QBZ-95 as a side note. I haven't really seen anything more from the Iranians so I hadn't put it in there, and I forgotten the designation of the QBZ-95, but it's likely going to get sent to reserves or exported because the Chinese are replacing it with the QBZ-03, supposedly. I really shouldn't have included the F2000, because, outside of Qaddaffi's elite troops, no real military buyers as a service weapon. As well, the Russians have plenty of bullpups that were in use (like the Groza) or still in use with a few units (A-91/ADS), but nothing widespread.
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Mar 4, 2019 02:54
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Young Freud posted:I really shouldn't have included the F2000, because, outside of Qaddaffi's elite troops, no real military buyers as a service weapon. Slightly incorrect as it was adopted as the main service rifle for Slovenia back in 06. Also the Saudi National Guard is equipped with them as well Beyond that its used with a couple of Special Forces units in Belgium, Peru, Pakistan and Poland. Although I start to feel we're digressing a bit too much. 
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Mar 4, 2019 03:27
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Young Freud posted:I really shouldn't have included the F2000, because, outside of Qaddaffi's elite troops, no real military buyers as a service weapon. Slovenia would like a word with you. (They were also issued two per squad to Belgian infantry for a while, as a grenadier and recce weapon: it's compact and can fit a grenade launcher.)
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Mar 4, 2019 03:28
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The TFR/TG crossover CYOA we’ve been demanding for years.
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Mar 4, 2019 03:51
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Midjack posted:The TFR/TG crossover CYOA we’ve been demanding for years. I'm sorry, but CP2020 really got me into guns. I mean, I always had an interest, but CP2020 was like my Call Of Duty.
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Mar 4, 2019 03:57
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I remember when I played Cyberpunk 2020 somebody in the group had written up just about every gun they could imagine and it was all printed on that old continuous form paper, like 8-12 pages of straight gun numbers. It wasn't all that terribly useful but was really exciting at the time. So many guns!
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Mar 4, 2019 04:09
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:23 |
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I remember coming across some fanmade rules for statting up guns in shadowrun, and coming up with this monstrous abomination of a bullpup smg in .357
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Mar 4, 2019 04:29
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