I finally got Cyberpunk, and it's your problem: A Review

 So... last week from writing this, I finished watching edgerunners, good show, bit too rushy, oh well. Anyways, I decided to check out cyberpunk 2013, prior to this I had a copy of 2020, which I could never grok, then I got my mitts on v3 and RED, which I also couldn't grok, v3 especially, which is ironic because when I was younger I got obbsessed with a fanmade Aliens game based on FUZION, which is the system for v3. RED was too big and shiny for me to embrace. 2020 was flavorful, but the system seemed too complex, so I decided to read thru all the 2013 books including friday night firefight. Here's the observations:

FNFF is cool actually, the OG is a stand alone gunfight system that makes the basis of CP2013, but it needs to get modified. What you need to note is that A: 5 stats B: 8 skills, all combat related. I like this level of simplicity, and I'll ask y'all to pin this for later. 

Next thing to note is gun damage has an optional subsystem which a friend of mine has described as 'fixing the weird shit with armor and bullets in 2020', basically, each bullet has a listed 'pounds of force per foot' which is based off of real firearms magazines. It recommends for every 40 f/lbs (idk why it's listed like this) to do 1 damage. When you do the calculations, and I did a few, you'll see pistols doing single digits of damage, the 9mm does 8 damage at close range, all of this gets soaked by the armor. But-but, keep this in your head, rifles have f/lbs ratings in the thousands, so what this means is a 5.56mm does 32 damage, a 7.62mmSoviet does 45 points, a 7.62mm NATO does 68 points. Max armor is 30. ARs rip thru most armor very handily, and have enough power to waste the fucker behind it. An FN FAL (7.62 NATO) is basically an instakill if it weren't for death saves, because it takes 21+ points to kill any person regardless of body type. So the dynamic is this, pistols and SMGs suck shit vs armor, rifles are uber lethal, shotguns are sorta like rifles. 

Next thing is this, in the cyberpunk books proper, there are some neat fluff things to note. It's way more flexible in setting, Night City is a placeholder setting, it actually asks you to take your own city and fuck with it. Next thing is here's where all the stats and skills are, I actually have some homebrew for these, keep in mind. Next thing is this, cyberpsychos are described as invincible save for anti-tank, but assuming gun values adhere to f/lbs values, a full-chrome mother fucker only has 20 armor and 40 HP, basically meaning an AK can 2 shot the fool. Upon conjecture, I realized that if the psycho can wear 30 armor points on top of their inherent protection, they're chumming around with fucking.... 50 armor, 40hp, which is impervious to AR-15s, M-16s, AK-47/AKMs, 30-30 rifles, and nades. Note I did not make mention of the FN FAL and other 7mm NATO guns, which would oneshot a regular fullchrome, and could be magdumped into an armored fullchrome, that's because the armory section is missing some shit, namely foreign rifles, save for the AK-47. It doesn't even have grenades! Or armor better than 18 points. This means actual good gear is likely a plotpoint, hoarded by gangbangers, corpos, and cops, and obtaining any will be a quest in and of itself. So like, your fixer character could locate a shipment of heavy gear, but now a bunch of other fuckers are gunning for it, so getting this stuff will prolly result in PC death. 

Another thing to notice is all the weapons here are actually contemporary, using old calibers and old designs. Cops use Beretta M9s, Uzis and MP5s sweep the streets, Glock 17s show up in place of say... a Unity pistol from 2077. There's .357 and .44 magnum revolvers (revolver is implied), and .38 specials like a noir detective from the past century would use. Cars are also mentioned to be pretty unchanged, fuel type aside. So... it makes a sorta... practical cyberpunk vibe, which makes sense, this is just 20 years after the game was written, cyberpunk crap is new and all, but it makes a vibe, chrome'd up gangers with over-mechanized arms toting AKs and Ithacas to the next firefight. Old guns fitted with hi-tech laser sights that barely mesh with the old gun. 

Add that together with ancient conceptions of the interenet and computers, and you got a cool retrofuture vibe of CRTs, thick wires, and dead-simple cars and guns, combined with people in rough cybernetics and shit. There's a definite vibe here. 

So, homebrew shit: there's references to railguns and miniguns. The minigun is a 7.62mm NATO, I'll dig up the cyclic fire rate somewhere else. Railguns prolly just kill whatever is hit. Anti-tank is the same. Nades kill anyone within a meter of the blast. Corpos, Trauma Team and Psycho Squads are in full 20 armor on head, legs, and torso, weilding FN FALs.  

Fashion is based on 2000s scene kid and japanese street fashion, cuz fuck you. Also visual kei made its way to the americas, and now any rockerboy is dolled up in a frilly dress and made to look like a girl. I don't make the rules, lmao. Also kinda cool to imagine computers still struggling to calculate 3d, so any 'advanced graphics' are run thru publically sold non-hacking cyberdecks that use your brain to render 3d shit. 

Homebrew Chargen

Stats: roll 2d5 down the line
Intelligence, Reflexes, Cool, Movement, Body Type, Empathy, Attractiveness, calculate Combat Experience Modifier (CEM) from FNFF

Skills, roll 2d3-1 down the line
Pistol, Rifle, Melee, Brawl, Technical Ability, Stealth, Athletics

Roll 2d3-2 for martial arts skill

Roll 1d3 for childhood, determining base Awareness

Start at 16, save to not end up on the streets (or just willingly end up there I guess), you can end chargen at 17 years old. You can elect to join the army instead of street time. Military back ground makes you ignore the CEM. You can try for college after any other terms are done. Each background allows you to pick 3 skills to add +2 to, lump skills together, disguise is stealth, AV repair is Tech. If it's a body of knowledge, like a language or an artform or a language, or even medicine, it's just something you know (to do first aid, know medicine and roll tech). 

Do backgrounds as normal, buy shit, choose to take a contract for 2000 eddies of cyberware. Done. Not playtested, likely won't be. Gonna run edgerunners in this setting.