I continue to waste away in Coronavirusville, but on the plus side, I was able to purchase and read through most of Altered States, a new Cyberpunk Supplement for Index Card Role Playing Game. I think it will help to streamline the rules for "the world's greatest 'cyberpunk' roleplaying game"...or at least the most well-known one. I have run CP2020 campaigns on Roll 20 wherein I tried to incorporate a few ICRPG rules, but now we have something official. Rules-light CP for less than $10.00? Sign me up.
At some point I might go all in on the AS setting which goes even further into the future than traditional CP, but I really am a sucker for the CP2020 ascetics. I like style over substance, and the 1980's feel, but to each his own. However, one thing I don't like about CP2020 is the bloated RAW and that's where AS helps.
I am a GM/Referee who likes having a permanent NPC stay with the players. She's not a Mary Sue and mostly gives exposition without my having to come up with a cast of thousands. In my 2020 games, the concept is that the team works to put on a reality show about Edgerunners similar to COPS. My character is a media type that follows them around and records their exploits for broadcast. She's famous with people on the streets, but overlooked by the Network Corporate types. She has plot armor on, but she's about as useful as Dungeon Master in the D&D cartoon was for all intentions. She's also useful for testing out how to build characters, so here's a quick take on how I converted my media darling Coco Lopez into an AS character along with a couple of thoughts on other CP2020 issues that can be taken care of with AS:
-----This part is probably only useful for those with copies of Altered States and Cyberpunk 2020-----
The first bit is all from AS--in my mind the closest in character concept was to make her Truth Seeker Enhanced Human Shifter with the Good, Bad and Ugly tag. I chose Mnemonic Link and Shifter Graft from the enhancement which helps her to record the happenings of her team while remaining in "Embedded" in the group and not look like a somewhat famous TV personality. Equipment doesn't matter, I pick what I want, but I did choose the external augment so she could get cyberoptics that fit with the character. Weapons again doesn't matter much choose what you want, but I added from CP2020 Rate of Fire (ROF) information for how many rounds can be spent per turn along with capacity for firearms that don't show specifics in AS. Also, it does take one round to reload on all firearms--with specifics beating general as always. Coco has no psychic abilities but the option seems really straight forward if players wanted to use them. Links and Bonds again doesn't matter much--players could even use the life path from CP2020 if they are into that kind of thing.
Next is the CP2020 stuff. Since I want Coco to remain a Media--I just looked at her specific skills from CP2020 and connect them with the most appropriate stat to my way of thinking. Example: Streetwise--seems like a WIS skill to me, so +2 is added to Coco's streetwise checks. If for some reason she needed to make a streetwise attempt--although I'd probably stick with checks for something involving this skill, I'd let her go with D4 effort--possibly D6 if she researched the area ahead of time or used her optics in some way. Also, if the character is using a career skill the roll would be easy vs. DC, a chipped skill would be straight roll vs. DC, and a non-chipped non-career skill would be Hard vs. DC or maybe even impossible like a non-chipped runner trying to read a language he's never seen before.
Netrunning--always a problem in CP2020--would be largely hand waved here. I would use the AS/ICRPG system all the way. I would let the Decker/Netrunner go into cyberspace but going into all the minutiae of deck building and which programs to load up has never been fun for anyone except the runner player and the GM from my experiences. You could resolve a hack really quickly and let the decker stay with his mates and fight.
It might be a while before I can try it, but I'm looking forward to giving it a go. As to the system I'd give it 4/5 because there's always room to improve, but for the cost? 5/5 you can skip a pizza and improve your cyberpunk game.
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