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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ Cyberpunk 2020

Posted by: silva May 17 2009, 01:27 AM

Hi there.

Old time Shadowrun player here, just recently managed to take a look at CP2020. I borrowed the core book and Night City Guide from a friend and finding it really interesting. (a bit teenager/over-the-top in tone, but interesting nonetheless)

So what would you say about it, and how does it compare to Shadowrun?

Posted by: Maelstrome May 17 2009, 04:07 AM

ive been wondering about it myself but cant find a copy.

what kind of system is it?

Posted by: silva May 17 2009, 06:14 AM

This cover got me interested...

http://img200.imageshack.us/my.php?image=nightcityguide.jpg

Just passing the eyes on the book, the system seems relatively simple (more simple than SR). But cant say anythng else aside of that,

Posted by: Chrysalis May 17 2009, 08:24 AM

I've been playing Cyberpunk 2020 from 1996. Making me a bit younger than Phipps (old fogey), who also comes to the forums. CP2020 I still think system wise is one of the best, because it uses very simplistic rules. The tech in it is rather dated. It is also better at handling Transmetropolitan style straight-up cyberpunk.

Posted by: hobgoblin May 17 2009, 10:23 AM

QUOTE (Maelstrome @ May 17 2009, 06:07 AM)

ive been wondering about it myself but cant find a copy.

http://store.fastcommerce.com/talsorian/cat-ff80818117a128240117a49939c74360.html

surprisingly cheap, i wonder if i should order myself the chromebooks as i have the main one sitting on a shelf...

still, i have a interest in the V3, even tho its more transhuman then cyberpunk (and have ruffled more then a few feathers with the old fan-guard).

bah, cant hurt to have both

Posted by: MKX May 17 2009, 10:39 AM

I dunno where all my old CP2013 and 2020 stuff went, I do have a suspicion they where stolen at some point in the mid 90's... so, they where worth stealing I 'spose.

As for the setting, its very much an adult-oriented RPG, much like SR 4th Ed has caught up too and we see in its contemporary version Possibly a bit dated in some ways now and very 80's in a lot of its influences, sources and style, but think the last time I remember running it was back in about 1993 around the same time as SR1st Ed. Make no mistake, I converted tons of the cool stuff over from CP2020 and into SR 2nd Ed for good reason, there was a lot of crap in there, but some of it was just really cool crap and 'fluff' material to set the scene!
I think in some ways SR hasn't quite got the 'yes its crap, but I want to buy it' factor quite down pat yet.
It did have a very revolutionary for the time character creation and background setup which I thought was a redeeming quality to it as well, plenty of diversity in how you make them up.

Overall, I think it had a lot more pro's than con's, fairly easy to run really.
Its very much low-lifes with high-tech gear and sometimes very lethal.

Posted by: MYST1C May 17 2009, 01:08 PM

QUOTE (silva @ May 17 2009, 03:27 AM)

So what would you say about it, and how does it compare to Shadowrun?

While i really like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk 2020 is my true love when it comes to RPGs. While some parts are dated (e.g. strict class-based character creation, unrealistic cyberspace representation - it was published in 1991 with most core rules and concepts going back to the first edition of 1988), it is simply a fun game!
The rules are simple (Stat + Skill + Modifiers + 1d10 vs. target number) and the game world is, IMHO, much more coherent than SR's.
Night City Sourcebook is one of the best RPG supplements I've ever read - it presents the whole city with maps and a block-by-block rundown of places, people and plot hooks! I generally like and recommend all of CP2020's location books: Home of the Brave (USA), Eurosource Plus (European Community), Pacific Rim (East Asia), Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net (Cyberspace), Deep Space (orbital habitats, space travel, moon bases)...

One CP2020 book I cannot recommend enough is Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads! The unexpurgated Cyberpunk Referee's Guide. A really great GM book usable for any Cyberpunk-style game ("Always remember: There are no stupid questions - just stupid people!").

My most important houserule is to replace the 1d10 mechanic with the 3d6 mechanic of Fuzion (a free universal system based on both CP2020's Interlock rules and the HERO system). CP2020's 1d10 mechanic has extremely high chances of critical success and failure (10% each)!

Posted by: Chrysalis May 17 2009, 02:03 PM

I really recommend Wildside, Chromebooks 1&2, Solo of Fortune.

Wildside is the game book for playing any fixer.

CP v3.0 if it was printed on toilet paper would be done with used razor blades.

Posted by: Wesley Street May 17 2009, 06:16 PM

Agreed. CP 3.0 is an embarrassment. Barbie dolls aside it looks like the person who did the book layouts never even took a design class in his life. It. Looks. Awful. If I owned the CP license I'd re-brand it as PostCyberPunk (all kinds of fun things you can do in marketing with the acronym "PCP") and take it from there.

Cyberpunk is a dated game... it's totally 80s, big-hair, Duran Duran, "oh that's totally grody dude" with class-based systems and die-rolling character trees for personality, history and even clothing style. It doesn't take much prep time to play, which is a plus if you're the kind of RPGer who just wants to get in and play and not fret over every little PC detail. But it's almost too simplistic if you've been playing Shadowrun. The tech is dated ("Whoah! Cell phones and fax machines!") and the sociology is dated ("Konichi-wa, you fear Japan, yes?") but it's a product of the late '80s so that's to be expected.

That said, the amount of detail one finds in a Cyberpunk sourcebook is the kind of thing that SR players whine on about what's missing in post 2nd edition Shadowrun. The Night City Sourcebook puts the original Seattle Sourcebook to shame in terms of sheer detail. In the intro, the author mentioned they actually put as much time into that one SB as they did into the CP2020 core book. The city core buildings are mapped out in 3D and everything from train schedules to museums to bars to police stations are listed in excruciating detail. But they also give you enough room to create your own spaces. The other sourcebooks are all solid as well. Their canned adventures had their good ones and their bad ones... there was even a cross-over adventure with Paranoia! So they did try to do different things with the property.

There's nothing that CP does that SR can't but it's definitely worth taking a look at if only to see where we've come from, what we can do right and what we can avoid in the future.

Posted by: Critias May 17 2009, 09:20 PM

It's good stuff. Great stuff, even.

I'm not a huge fan of the core system -- mostly because I'm notorious for rolling a 1 on a d10 about half the time, and critical botches with firearms can suck -- but the STYLE of the books should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in playing or running a Shadowrun game, IMO. Where many think of Shadowrun as "D&D, plus guns," to me it's always been "CP:2020, plus elves."

Posted by: Chrysalis May 17 2009, 09:32 PM

QUOTE (Critias @ May 18 2009, 12:20 AM)

I always thought SR was CP2020 with the AD&D Monster Manual.

Switch over to using 3d6 from Fuzion, it makes for better rolls thanks to the "bell curve". Although you lose the legendary roll 3 10s one after each other.

Posted by: Synner667 May 17 2009, 10:33 PM

QUOTE (silva @ May 17 2009, 02:27 AM)

So what would you say about it, and how does it compare to Shadowrun?

CP20xx is more of a "pure" cyberpunk - Neuromancer, Bladerunner, Robocop, Ghost in the Shell, etc - than the Urban Fantasy that was SR.
CP v3 is a very different fish, generally disliked for it's update of the setting.

In many ways, CP20xx's setting is what SR has finally caught up with [which is one reason why so many people spent so much time and effort converting CP20xx material to SR].

The spin off, Cybergeneration, is very much what SR v4 has become [Technomancers and overlayed reality, for instance]

Using the Fuzion rules, which the CP20xx rules evolved into, allows much, much more flexibility and many more options for characters than SR v4 can even begin to approach [helped by Talsorian having the HERO rules for a while].

Posted by: hobgoblin May 18 2009, 10:28 AM

QUOTE (Wesley Street @ May 17 2009, 08:16 PM)

Checked the book and it was Mike himself that did the layout and design.

All in all it would not surprise me if v3 was a solo project done by Mike during free time, as he, his wife and Will Moss is the only 3 people listed as writers (they also wrote 2020, but there is 3 other people also listed, and the layout and design team have 5-6 other people besides Mike listed).

Posted by: nezumi May 18 2009, 02:24 PM

Yes, the background stuff is fantastic. There are encyclopedias of gear (tons of cyber and weapons), maps and so on.

As for the mechanics, they actually sort of suck. They're very simple, but that doesn't mean they're fast. There are a lot of rolls, especially for autofire (where you roll for each bullet). The mechanics aren't very well balanced either. They went strongly for realism, at the expense of balance. CP is a VERY deadly game, and it's not hard for one or two characters to physically dominate everyone else. I will also say, in my experience, old CP players seem to be in a culture of their own, and it's hard to just jump in. Expect lots of house rules and pre-conceived notions on what is or is not acceptable, even if it's not written in the manuals.

I tried to get into CP. First I ran a game. It ended when one of the players, the one player who had played previously and who I asked if he'd help me understand the system, started complaining because someone else was wearing metalgear in public, and NO ONE would wear metalgear in public. Since it was a plot-important point, he killed the game.

The second one I played in someone else's game. He had some good house rules, like a cap on the primary class skill, but then made all sorts of assumptions about things like how the police operate which don't appear in any book and he wasn't willing to explain to me. At that point, I got frustrated and gave up.

If you do play, make sure it's with people you already know and aren't CP snobs. That's the lesson I came away with.

Posted by: Wesley Street May 18 2009, 03:08 PM

QUOTE (hobgoblin @ May 18 2009, 05:28 AM)

That's so strange. It's not like there wouldn't have been gob-loads of student and professional layout artists willing to lend a hand. This is the kind of thing I would have jumped on in art school. It's unfortunate that Mike's attempted foray into graphic design destroyed what could have been a great re-launch.

Posted by: hobgoblin May 18 2009, 03:23 PM

QUOTE (nezumi @ May 18 2009, 04:24 PM)

As for the mechanics, they actually sort of suck. They're very simple, but that doesn't mean they're fast. There are a lot of rolls, especially for autofire (where you roll for each bullet). The mechanics aren't very well balanced either. They went strongly for realism, at the expense of balance. CP is a VERY deadly game, and it's not hard for one or two characters to physically dominate everyone else. I will also say, in my experience, old CP players seem to be in a culture of their own, and it's hard to just jump in. Expect lots of house rules and pre-conceived notions on what is or is not acceptable, even if it's not written in the manuals.

Iirc, the combat system is claimed to be based off FBI ballistic tests, among other things. And the version used in 2020 have its lethality toned down compared to the 2013 edition...

Posted by: Chrysalis May 18 2009, 05:06 PM

My issue with CP v3.0 was not the layout or the images, as much as it sucked. My issue was that the text was really 20 pages of poorly written material which was rehashed over 97 pages.

-Chrysalis

Posted by: hobgoblin May 18 2009, 05:59 PM

heh, what can i say, the description of night city in v3 kinda reminded me of future gotham city from batman beyond...

that, and the edgerunner armor reminded me of the one interesting scene from the movie version of lost in space, where the soldier deploys his battle armor to hold of a threat while the rest gets to safety.

Posted by: silva May 19 2009, 01:23 AM

Thanks everybody for the help.

So, taking a good look at the game, I got some worries..

1) Damage and Lethality.

I dont like rolling for damage (I think it bogs down combat). So, what would be a good fix value for a die? I thought about using 1d6= 3 or 4, the approx average.

And how does this modification stacks with the "halving armor" rule? I see the average armor (Armored/Kevlar Jacket) has rating 20 by default rules. Halving it would turn to 10.

I see also that a average heavy pistol do 3d6 damage, which woould go to 9 or 12 by my fixed damage rules.

So an average bulletproof protection would stop almost all damage from a average heavy pistol, putting him/her on a light damage level. While an unprotected target would take 9 or 12 points of damage, putting him/her on "critical" damage level.

2) Attributes/Stats

I notice the stats/attribs are: a) considerably unbalanced between themselves (Reflexes and Inteligence rules; Body and Appearance sucks); and b) pretty weird by themselves (come on, "Movement Allowance" ? Why not "Agility" or "Speed" already?). So I got this idea: swap the atributes to ones more balanced and more cool sounding...

Physical:
Body, Agility, Reflexes;

Mental:
Logic, Coolness, Empathy;

Special:
Cyber-Affinity, Edge; Appearance;

*Edge is just a better name for Luck; Cyber just a better name and concept for "Tech", encompassing not just an affinity for technology, but also the char natural tolerance to cyber-implants (maybe reducing or increasing humanity cost of implants? ); Logic is just a better name for inteligence; And Agility just a better name for "Movement Allowance" (oh my god, this must be the worst attribute name in a game ).

So, what you guys think?

Posted by: cREbralFIX May 19 2009, 01:52 AM

RE: Lethality

Just max the damage on all firearms and explosives. Fully automatic fire is just nasty in the game. Characters tend to get splattered anyway, so who cares? Meat is disposable; adopt the Cyberpunk attitude!

Shadowrun can be a bit cheesy in some areas; my first scenario shocked a bunch of SR players (ugh...back in '92) as a CP2020 GM starting out in SR TWO. A few characters were completely hosed and spent quite a bit of time in the hospital.

Get the books for the background. Heck, use 'em as source material and play using the SR4 rules minus magic and critters.

Posted by: Synner667 May 19 2009, 06:41 AM

Oh.

So the whole point of your initial post was to work out how to convert from CP20xx to SR ??

As with any conversion, don't try and just do a direct conversion - it doesn't work.
The games are too different for a direct conversion, because they were designed to do things differently and for different 'feel'.

Determine equal values - what's an equivalent attribute value, an equivalent damage value, etc

Posted by: MYST1C May 19 2009, 11:06 AM

QUOTE (Synner667 @ May 19 2009, 08:41 AM)

Determine equal values - what's an equivalent attribute value, an equivalent damage value, etc

One very important difference between SR and CP2020 is the cyber system: CP2020 characters can take a lot more cyberware than SR characters, especially with a maxed Empathy stat.
Plus, "Humanity loss" in CP2020 is a purely psychological condition, not a mystic/metaphysical one like in SR. The core book already contained rules for completely restoring Humanity through therapy (requiring removal of all implants) while one of the chromebooks later offered rules for decreasing Humanity loss through therapy even while keeping your cyber.

After all, some of the full-body borgs had Humanity costs of dozens of d6s or even d10s when you could have at max 100 Humanity points (EMP 10 x 10)!

Posted by: nezumi May 19 2009, 01:05 PM

Synner is precisely right. While there is nothing stopping you from pulling CP stuff over to SR (or tri-stat or whatever you want to use as mechanics; remember CP2020 basically had mechanics so they had somethign to pull together all of their cool things. Their motto is style over substance. The mechanics are completely secondary), do be aware that, well, they believe in style over substance. CP is NOT BALANCED.

There are a bazillion conversions already on the web for CP2020 -> Shadowrun. About 2/3rds are also not balanced (if you see any handheld weapons that do 12LN, run). I made a loooong list of stuff here on Dumpshock you are welcome to yoink, on the condition you tell me what works and what doesn't, so I can refine it. You are also welcome to do CP2020 freeform, or just resolve combat with a flip of a coin. It's completely in line with the world they've set up. Realize right now, CP2020 mechanics are voluntary, like something added after the fact to stick their stuff together. SR mechanics are not.

Posted by: Wesley Street May 19 2009, 02:52 PM

QUOTE (Chrysalis @ May 18 2009, 01:06 PM)

My issue with CP v3.0 was not the layout or the images, as much as it sucked. My issue was that the text was really 20 pages of poorly written material which was rehashed over 97 pages.

It could have been the greatest thing since sliced bread but if the presentation looked like garbage, who would bother with reading it? Sounds to me like the ugly layouts save people from hashing through ugly rules. It's double ugly!

Posted by: hobgoblin May 19 2009, 03:36 PM

i knew i was a freak, but i didnt know how much of one until now...

Posted by: Wesley Street May 19 2009, 04:33 PM

It's okay. You're still loved.

Posted by: Chrysalis May 24 2009, 06:14 PM

I started playing CP2020 in 1996!

rec.games.frp.cyber for the fights, wins, and spills.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 25 2009, 06:41 AM

The biggest problem with the game is that because guns are so dangerous, in combat everyone who isn't a solo just isn't a contributor. It is quite possible for a tricked out solo to kill all the mooks before anyone else in the party even gets to act. Or, conversely, if the other guys are solos, they will kill the entire party before anyone gets to act. It is fun like being murdered.

This non contributor status includes the other supposed combat classes, like the native bikers and whatever else. The system blows as a result (what the hell is everyone else supposed to do? You have a Face, the Combat Guy and the hugely tedious matrix guy which sucks donkey cock. What the hell is the 4th role in the party suppose to be? The books make like it is 'the guy who drives the van around' but being a taxi drive is awesome fun.. not.)

Instead, if you want to play CP2020, just copy paste shadowrun rules in, ban magic, make essence the limit of cyberware and Cap the number IP passes you can get to something.. lower.

Posted by: Synner667 May 25 2009, 09:16 AM

QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ May 25 2009, 07:41 AM)

Whine, whine, whine.

Guns are supposed to be dangerous.
The whole point of Solo is they are good at combat, and not much else.
As a result CP2020 is not about standing up and shooting people until someone falls over - because that isn't very sensible. It is about using your brains and some sort of tactics.

QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ May 25 2009, 07:41 AM)

This non contributor status includes the other supposed combat classes, like the native bikers and whatever else. The system blows as a result (what the hell is everyone else supposed to do? You have a Face, the Combat Guy and the hugely tedious matrix guy which sucks donkey cock. What the hell is the 4th role in the party suppose to be? The books make like it is 'the guy who drives the van around' but being a taxi drive is awesome fun.. not.)

whine, whiine, whine.

CP2020, and most modern RPGs, are supposed to be about "teams" and "co-operation" - concepts that you may not be aware of.
They work to the assumption that everybody isn't good at everything, therefore specialists work together to accomplish tasks.

Unlike "old" RPGs like AD&D, combat is not the only way to gain experience points for improving Characters. Therefore, there are other ways to gain experience to improve the character.
If you can't play any role apart from a guy who shoots and kills things, fair enough - do that, and there'll be a role in almost any team.
If you want to play something other than a Solo [you know, every other role in the team], hire one for when trouble starts and the guns start blazing - but stop trying to be a non-combat specialist who wants to be a Solo.

CP2020, and the realworld, are not designed around the idea that the only role for a Character is combat. There are plenty of things for other people to do. There are plenty of other roles available. There are plenty of opportunities for those other roles to contribute.

What's the point of blaming CP2020, or any other RPG, because it doesn't do what you want - move on and play something else, or write your own and play that.

Posted by: Cthulhudreams May 25 2009, 12:18 PM

If you're going to be a team and cooperate, everyone has to contribute something. Which means they need a role. On the team. Like I said.

So without roles on the team, you don't have a team or any co-operation.

Did you even read my post? What the hell is the other role in the team aside from the shootist and the talky dude. The hacker is so totally unplayable in the general scheme of things (takes to long where the other players do nothing, so they will go play the xbox rather than sit there not caring) that we have 2 team roles and then other people who just duplicate what those two bring to the table.

As for the solos dominating combat thing, that would be fine if combat didn't take a stupidly long time to resolve if anyone used an automatic weapon. Instead it just leads to smash bros on the part of the players who have no method to contribute, and jealousy on the part of the players who are supposed to be contributors - the other combat classes - but are rendered completely irrelevant by the solos.

Posted by: Chrysalis May 25 2009, 01:26 PM

Alright let me run combat from memory.

Initative.

Special ability+skill+weapon of choice.

Hits or does not hit (GM decides on how difficult the shot is. 10+ whatever)

Hits, location, damage

Usually we wave location since otherwise people get statistically hit in the right leg a lot.

Anything that penetrates your armor goes through.

You bleed.

You want to run automatic fire, simple. How many rounds are you firing 1,3, or 10? Oh 10. Okay roll for a hit. It hits. One roll or ten up to you. They either get past the armor or do not (recommend for an SP20 jacket rolling the 10 or 3 times).

Even your face (which by the way does not exist in CP2020, unless you are talking about the Rockerboy or the modified politician from the Rockerboy in the basic book) can have a shot.

To be honest worst experience as a Sam was in Shadowrun where the other player was a possession voodoo mage who made an average 30 dice of damage and had armor in roughly the equivalent level. In that situation I was redundant.

Posted by: Critias May 25 2009, 04:54 PM

What is it about Solos that makes them dominate your combat so much, even compared to Cops and Bikers and whatnot? The only thing they bring to the table that no one else at all can is their Combat Sense. An initiative boost is nice and all, but it's not the be-all end-all of combat (especially between multiple opponents).

Plenty of other archetypes have enough access to combat skills to be very dangerous with guns...especially since, as you said, the firearms in and of themselves are innately pretty deadly.

It's not like Shadowrun where you need a ridiculously high combat skill in order to rack up successes to make a weak weapon dangerous. It's a core hit/miss mechanic, with degree of success not playing any part at all. Anyone pointing a gun at you is dangerous.

Posted by: MYST1C May 25 2009, 08:01 PM

QUOTE (Critias @ May 25 2009, 06:54 PM)

It's a core hit/miss mechanic, with degree of success not playing any part at all.

With one exception: automatic fire. Check Result minus Difficulty equals number of bullets hitting (max. up to the number of shots fired, of course).