Bei den Blutschwertern wird heftig gerätselt, wobei der eine oder andere Diskutant offenbar über Insiderwissen verfügt.

Games-In selbst wirbt schon ganz massiv auf der Website und kündigt an, dass Werk sei im Druck. Preis oder Vorbestellmöglichkeit habe ich aber nicht entdecken können. Das ist seltsam, den bei Druckbeginn sollten die Kalkulationsgrundlagen so langsam mal feststehen.

Auf der Cyberpunk 2020 Seite von Games In ist zudem ein missglücktes Karussell (oder soll es eine Revolvertrommel sein? HÄßLICH! Und auch noch Flash – bäh.) mit kostenlosen Downloads zu finden. Dabei handelt es sich allerdings nur um Charakterbögen / Datenfestungsbögen / ACPA-Bögen usw. – der Charakterbogen (versteckt als Charakter HC) ist aber ganz ansehnlich geworden.

Das Drucken des GRW kann zugegebenermaßen dauern. Aber im Mai das neue Buch – wäre super. Warum darf ich nicht vorbestellen? Bei wissenschaftlichen Fachbüchern geht das oft schon, bevor der Autor überhaupt ein Manuskript abgegeben hat!

Naja, wenn nur endlich erscheint… Rabenaas hats dann bestimmt wieder vor mir besprochen, aber selbst dass kann meiner Freude dann keinen Abbruch mehr tun.

Cyberpunk is dead? Haha. Danke Games-In.

Villians are difficult do create and play for an Cyberpunk 2020 GM. In D&D, a evil aura is all you need for the groups paladin to cry “I shall smite this evil” and a fight will occur. Which will be Level-appropriate. And be won by the group after having expended the precalculated amount of spells, magic item charges and hitpoints. Boring.

So how do you give your PCs a villian they will remember? When I was young, you could identify them rather easily. They wore a tie. This is no longer an option – I have to wear a tie at work myself. But then, I’m probably a villian, too. Only less well payed. And no, we don’t get any cool guns or explosives. Not even super-powers.

Where was I? Ah, right. Yax, over at dungeonmastering.com, wrote an D&D related article on how to greate a love-to-hate villain. Some stuff (also taken from the comments) might be useful for cyberpunk, too. In the comments I found

Make the villain an ally, until story arcs climax, then betrayal then return in reacuring arcs. Annoying, frustrating, and appealing. Plus, get one of the players intimatly connected, like a relative, or childhood friend or lover. thats a hard thing to kill.

Okay, that’s basic for us. What else is there? Lot of stuff that might be innovative for D&D, but not new for cyberpunk. A selection of the best ideas:

The love-to-hate-them villains should:

1. Speak slowly. Very slowly. Or have any other annoying vocal habit.
2. Be good. That villain is lawful and good, but stupid or manipulated so that he doesn’t realize he’s causing harm. It’s hard to deal with someone who well-meaning, but they’re still annoying.
3. Have the villain send a thug to beat the tar out of one of the PCs – not permanently damage them but beat them into unconsciousness (if they can). Of course the villain has an alibi but everyone KNOWS it was his/her order.
4. Have the villain steal a prized magic item from one of the PCs and then wear/use it publicly, much to the adoration and amusement of the commonors in town.

I would love to collect your tips on how to create the most memorable and well-hated villians for cyberpunk 2020 in the comments. Yes, comments in german are willkommen.

You may have heard one bit or the other about the “Future Combat System” project of the US military. Now, there is a new and completed article in the English wikipedia that gives a good overview about the current development of the Future Combat System and the very heart of it, the Future Force Warrior:

“The Future Force Warrior project seeks to create a lightweight, fully integrated infantryman combat system. (…) (It) envisions the radical use of technologies such as nanotechnology, artificial powered exoskeletons, and magnetorheological fluid based body armor to provide the infantry with significantly higher force multiplier than the opposing force. (…)

The first phase of the project involves a development of the technologies to help reduce the soldier’s fighting load and power requirements and improving the soldier’s protection, lethality, and environmental and situational awareness, with planned deployment in 2010, to serve the Army’s short-term needs. The Army’s plan is to introduce the subsystems in “spirals” every two years, instead of one large rollout every ten years. The U.S. military hopes to develop a fully realized end product sometime in 2032, incorporating research from U.C. Berkeley’s BLEEX exoskeleton project and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies into a final design.“

I guess the next time my PCs are going to infiltrate some corp compound, they will meet this little enemy:

I’m at a loss to stat this thing. Speed maybe 20 km/h? Would that gun be a 7.62? Looks like it carries at least a 100 rounds. I would give it a 10+d10 to attack and 7+d10 for Initiative. Remotely controlled it would gain the skill of the operator. A netrunner could hijack it, if the right controller program is available.