Wann kommt das neue deutsche Cyberpunk 2020?

Das neue Cyberpunk 2020 RegelwerkBei 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.

The evil guys – how to paint them black in a greyscale world

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.

Programming 108: It's the Law, 'punk!

Programming 108: It’s the Law, ‘punk!

Snitch
CLASS: Alarm COST: 580eb
STRENGTH: 4 MU: 4
PROGRAMMING: 174 DIFFICULTY: 29
FUNCTION(S): Alarm
OPTION(S): Memory, Icon (superrealistic)
COST MULTIPLIER: x2 (Alarm x2)
ICON: Snitch has a database consisting of thousands of pictures. You nevah know who can be airin’ your dirty laundry.
DATA: After the intruding netrunner has been detected, the program will alert the sysop on duty so he can deal with the threat first hand.
Handcuffs
CLASS: Anti-Personnel COST: 7,000eb
STRENGTH: 3 MU: 4
PROGRAMMING:168 DIFFICULTY: 28
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel Continue reading “Programming 108: It's the Law, 'punk!”

Future Soldier

ffw.jpgYou 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.

Killer Robots

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

Killer Robots will kill you

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.

Programming 107

Programming 107

Medusa
CLASS: Anti-Personnel COST: 11,250eb
STRENGTH: 5 MU: 7
PROGRAMMING: 258 DIFFICULTY: 43
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel
OPTION(S): Movement Ability, Recognition, Conversational Ability, Pseudo-Intellect, Contextural Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x25 (Anti-Personnel x25)
ICON: A lovely young woman dressed in an elegant evening gown and the snakes that pose as her hair pulled back into a topknot. She speaks with a sultry voice, alluring the ‘runner to glance upon her magnificient beauty.
DATA: This was truly an interesting program to put together. She does 8d6 points of damage to the ‘runner while turning him/her Icon into a stone statue that will remain in the matrix where it was frozen.
Netmare
CLASS: Anti-Personnel COST: 7,000eb
STRENGTH: 6 MU: 4
PROGRAMMING: 168 DIFFICULTY: 28
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel
OPTION(S): Contextural Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x25 (Anti-Personnel x25)
ICON: Whatever you’re afraid of, this program will construct an Icon to resemble that special someone or something that haunts your dreams. And in some cases, your every waking moment.
DATA: Everyone is afraid of something. This program will search your psyche until it uncovers that special something that causes even the most stout of heart to cringe in fear. For us netrunners, this program can be particularly unsettling. It can cause us to fear interfacing with Ma Matrix. Personally, if I can’t feel the loving touch of Ma Matrix at least once per day, I get mighty cranky. Whomever has fallen victim to this program must make a roll: Difficulty vs. 20. If the roll is failed, the person is incapable of performing their so-called duty for 1d10 minutes. Once this period has passed, a second roll is made. If this roll is passed, the person can perform as normal. If the second rolled failed, there is a 50% chance that that person ain’t nothing more than a blabbering idiot on the floor for 6d10 minutes. Or that person will become extremely violent for 6d10 in an attempt to escape his/her fear. Oh look. Here comes Max-Tac to handle your little psychotic episode.Whenever the victim of this program comes across the situation/person/what-have-you he/she/it fears, he/she/it must make a roll: Difficulty vs. 20. If the roll is passed, the victim can perform the task at hand. If the roll failed, the victim cannot perform the task needed to be done until they recover: Difficulty vs. 25. Awww. Havin’ another psychotic episode? Here comes Max-Tac to deal with it permanently.
Hydra of Domain
CLASS: Anti-Personnel, Detection COST: 24,000eb
STRENGTH: 5 MU: 8
PROGRAMMING: 288 DIFFICULTY: 48
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel, Detection
OPTION(S): Movement Ability, Auto Re-Rez, Endurance, Contextural Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x50 (Anti-Personnel x25, Detection x2)
ICON: A contextural Icon of an enormous creature with five heads and a twin tail.
DATA: This is a program that you don’t wanna be on the recieving end of. The program starts out with five heads and each auto re-rez causes a new head to grow. Example: the program starts with five head, then you hack one off. If the program re-rezzes, the original head and a new head will appear. Thus making a total of six heads. Each additional head after the fifth adds +1 to the program’s current STR. Six heads, STR: 6. Ten heads, STR: 10. There can only be a maximum of ten heads and a maximum STR of 10. Each attack against the netrunner will produce 1d6 per head. Oh my! That’s gonna leave a mark!
Wyvern
CLASS: Anti-Personnel, Detection COST: 22,500eb
STRENGTH: 5 MU: 7
PROGRAMMING: 270 DIFFICULTY: 45
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel, Detection
OPTION(S): Memory, Endurance, Photorealistic Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x50 (Anti-Personnel x25, Detection x2)
ICON: I took great pride and joy in creating this Icon. It is an adult wyvern. It looks as good as any tri-vid image you’re gonna find in the movie industry or generated on the Net.
DATA: What can be said about such a magnificient creature? Noble and majestic. Arrogant, proud, and aloof. Lord of all they survey and master of what they keep their lairs. They will do 5d10 points of damage to the netrunner that disturbs its lair.
Cloak of Invisibility
CLASS: Stealth COST: 540eb
STRENGTH: 4 MU: 4
PROGRAMMING: 162 DIFFICULTY: 27
FUNCTION(S): Stealth
OPTION(S): Invisibility, Superrealistic Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x2 (Stealth x2)
ICON: A cloak made of the finest cloth euro can buy.
DATA: The best way to sneak around on the Net is not to let the enemy see ya.

Please also repeat lessons:

Dystopian Future visions only on economic heights!

Cirlot and I are just now discussing why cyberpunk seems to be big in Germany, but not in the US. I think it has something to do with economic circles and the fact that Germanys more advanced social security system prevented the necessary angst till now (Germany just saw a massive decrease in social security in the last years. We are back to public soup kitchens!)

Looks like I’m wrong! io9 (I talked about that fantastic blog already) has created this wonderful graph:

When The Economy Booms, Dystopias Rule

(click for larger image)

Charlie Jane Anders thinks

So what’s going on here? A few explanations suggest themselves. Movie execs may greenlight dystopian films during economic downturns, and their immediate aftermath, but it may take a few years for those films to work their way through the development process and hit your screens. But it’s also possible that when things are at their brightest economically, people feel the most insecure because they know the good times won’t last forever. So boom times are when people most need stories about people surviving the bad times. Or maybe it’s just that film-makers are a contrary bunch, who want to rub your face in the dirt just when you’re feeling your brightest.

So what? Even I’m sometimes wrong. Please don’t tell my girlfriend.

Programming 106: Everyone's Kung Fu Fighting!

Programming 106:
Everyone’s Kung Fu Fighting!

Clap of Thunder
CLASS: Anti-Personnel COST: 4,650eb
STRENGTH: 6 MU: 5
PROGRAMMING: 186 DIFFICULTY: 31
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel
OPTION(S): Superrealistic Icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x25 (Anti-Personnel x25)
ICON: A rippling wave of black electricity.
DATA: The Icon of the netrunner shouts, “Clap of thunder!”, then claps his/her hands together to cause the rippling effect in the ‘net. The attack will cause 4d6 points of neural damage to the target ‘runner and will push him/her back 1d6+1 spaces. Continue reading “Programming 106: Everyone's Kung Fu Fighting!”

Cyb3rpunk | New State City Setting

cyb3rpunklogo.png

[ newstate, i.s.a. ]

Newstate ist der neueste Staat der Incorporated States of America (I.S.A.). Er entstand aus der Zwangsvereinigung verschiedener vormals getrennter Staaten im Nordosten des Landes zum Zwecke einer “Revitalisierung” der seit Jahrzehnten von Krisen geschüttelten und im Niedergang begriffenen Vorzeige-Region der alten USA.Speziell der Niedergang New Yorks im Nachgang des nuklearen Terroranschlages und das desaströse Ende der Arkologieprojekte während des Zusammenbruchs haben zum faktischen Ende des Wirtschaftsstandorts Nordost Continue reading “Cyb3rpunk | New State City Setting”

Programming 105: It Ain't Over 'til the Fat Lady Sings!

Programming 105: It Ain’t Over ’til the Fat Lady Sings!

Faceless Hunter
CLASS: Anti-Personnel COST: 15,250eb
STRENGTH: 8 MU: 11
PROGRAMMING: 366 DIFFICULTY: 61
FUNCTION(S): Anti-Personnel, Disguise
OPTION(S): Movement Ability, Trace, Auto Re-Rezz, Recognition, Invisibility, Memory, Speed, Endurance, Pseudo-Intellect, Superrealistic icon
COST MULTIPLIER: x25 (Anti-Personnel x25)
ICON: A silver humanoid figure with no facial or sexual features to distinguish it. However, with its Disguise function it can assume the structure of any program or form of any netrunner it has come across in its past.
DATA: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Unfortunately, with a Faceless Hunter after you, you’ll never know which is which. Continue reading “Programming 105: It Ain't Over 'til the Fat Lady Sings!”