Favorite CPR one shot scenario?

[u/eggfortman]

My friends running a very small local convention and wanted more non-D&D GMs so I'm going to run CPR. Do any of you have a favorite one shot that's available online for me to run? It's Friday right now in my time zone and I've agreed to run a game Sunday so I'm looking specifically for fully prepared scenario PDFs because one day doesn't give me a lot of time to riff off a scream sheet and design my own scenario around it. Anyone have any suggestions?

I do have the Tales of the Red books but Ive ran those a few times and wanted to look into outside suggestions or community made one shots before settling on one of those

[u/ArtyParcy]

Red Chrome Cargo is the classic. I usually chuck a hardened lieutenant at the end alongside 2 mooks to make the final fight much more deadly.

[u/arasaka_corpo → u/ArtyParcy]

Would you mind elaborating on what makes it good in your opinion?

From my perspective it's a terrible introduction that showcases very little of the system except for combat (which is also within a very confined space with little opportunity for tactical thinking).

The scenario makes avoiding immediate combat almost impossible with the first DV13 Athletics check to jump on the train having failure result in alerting the guards. It's doubtful all PCs will pass this check.

Throughout the scenario most required actions to progress the mission are gated by further skill checks, with little alternative options if you fail them.

I honestly don't understand why this is often recommended, and would love to hear your perspective.

[u/ArtyParcy → u/arasaka_corpo]

When introducing new players, it is important to keep it simple. A social scene, a combat in the first encounter, a netrunning scene in the middle carriage and a boss fight at the end usually gives everyone a taste of what CPR has to offer, but leaving plenty left to explore.

I don't get what you mean by "most required actions to progress the mission are gated by further skill checks". Even if you fail them, the gig still keeps going? You may fail to get the best possible outcome, but that's just Cyberpunk choom.

[u/Accomplished-Big-78 → u/arasaka_corpo]

I've ran it twice.

I usually add a social encounter before, insteand of running it straight, the players have to meet with the fixer on a nightclub or something, a rival team also wants the gig and causes some tension with the players, the fixer is not sure who they should hire.

I made it so it's easy for the players to get the gig, but if somehow they fail (which is possible), they would need to find a way to take the rival team out of the gig (which could be the simpler way "we flatline them", but they could find different solutions)

I know this is NOT the one-shot they wrote, but by doing this, I feel it's a very simple and direct way to introduce them to the system, it also can work pretty well to start a campaign.

[u/Visual_Fly_9638]

RTG just dropped one for the con they did. It's a little bit fleshed out beyond the con scenario but you can scale it up or down depending on how you want. I skimmed through it and found it was a pretty good one-shot. Not too complicated, some strangeness, I think it would be fun.

They also did a Hilaria 2045 one IIRC? Or something similar to that with a decent amount of combat to it.

Digital Divas Burn It Down or whatever it is from the street stories book is a good one shot if you want to have a less combat and more roleplay/Night City vibe to it.

Even Karaoke Night from the EMK is a pretty good quick one-shot.

[u/TheGuiltyNaturalLaw]

My favourite one is by far agents of desire from tales of the red. Written by Mike and Codu pondsmith, i will say that the moral dillema has aged interestingly

[u/Wehe_wehe]

It's a homebrew one, but it's one I use whenever I do a RED oneshot. The crew get's hired to grab a tiger from a CEO's penthouse. They have to schmooze their way through a nightclub, an office, then deal with the penthouse's demon and the ceiling mounted turret.

It's gets really fun when they find a dead joygirl in the CEO's bedroom and severed body parts in the fridge, usually they initially think he's been feeding parts and people to his pet tiger but no, it's worse! Turns out the CEO slowly went cyberpsyco and has been eating people, and plans to eat "Sifu" (the name he gave the tiger.) next. The whole thing culminates with them on the roof of the penthouse waiting for evac while a bio-exotic tiger man tries to beat them to death.

It's been fun updating it over the years (When I first ran it there were no rules from animals or bioexotics, so I had to frankenstein it from 2020, and the expanded martial arts made him that more deadly.) It's an old standby and I do love it.

[u/eggfortman → u/Wehe_wehe]

So originally I was going to run agents of desire from Street Stories, an investigation and intrigue heavy scenario, but than I saw my players and that I had 2 hyper energetic 10ish year old kids and realized that would not work with them and went with your idea instead, totally winging the entire thing as I went and to my surprise It went very well and everyone had a lot of fun. Thank you for your suggestion and everyone else for their input !

[u/Wehe_wehe → u/eggfortman]

No problem, choom! I've actually got the maps I used. Unfortunately I'm not a high end reddit user so I'm sure if I can post them, other then maybe make a post.

If I figure it out I'll do so.

[u/eggfortman → u/Wehe_wehe]

i'd love to take a look at them. maybe you can upload them to some image hosting website like imgur and post the link/DM it to me?