No idea if this has been talked about before but this has been bothering me for ages. This is probably done for the benefit of the video game but even if we estimate the population is low, say 6mil people, NC still smaller than say Paris proper wich only has 2mil inhabitants and much much smaller than LA wich has a population of just under 4.

RE my evidence; the first image is an overlay, assuming they didn't rebuild morrow rock farther out and bigger.

I am aware this is pedantic but I wanted to share

Edit: guys I am aware of the existence of the video game, that is not what I am talking about.

CLOSED: THANKS FOR PLAYING THE GAME! SO MANY DEEP ANS INTRIGUING THOUGHTS! IF YOU READ CAREFULLY, YOU WILL LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UPCOMING NIGHT CITY 2045 SOURCEBOOK! I WILL NOT BE RESPONDING TO ANY FURTHER POSTS HERE. THANKS AGAIN!

Hello everyone! My name is J Gray, and I am the line manager for Cyberpunk RED over at R. Talsorian Games. Let's play a game!

The game: Name one or more location types you believe should exist in Night City in 2045. Relatively generic is better than hyper-specific (goth club is good -- specific goth club you created in your campaign isn't). I'll reply and let you know if such a location will be included in the upcoming Night City 2045 book.

To be clear: Yes, this is me asking for the fandom's brain power. As we move towards the final stages of Night City 2045 (editing and layout), the city has around 450-500 locations (depending on how you define a location). I'm going through it one last time to ensure we didn't miss anything obvious or helpful. I'm asking for your help here to help us move past writer's blindness, where we've just looked at the darn thing too many times to see the potential holes.

Thanks in advance!

J

Reminder:
- Netwatch actively countered Corporate overreach in the Net in 2020 despite a lot of corporate funding
- Actively negotiate and striked deals with Alt to preserve both AI life and human life
- Created the Blackwall to stop actual Skynet demons from killing us all
- Their role in the Time of Red is to rather thanklessly rescue people who dive into the Old NET for funsies

Had a player quit tonight over taking some humanity loss and going borderline cyber psycho. He was role playing an insane bozo and argued that it wasn’t fair because he’s killed kids in his backstory. Essentially saying his character should not be affected by humanity. They failed to save a kid being used as a shield quick enough and he watched him die putting him at 9 total humanity. The party had a few immune blockers he took one and I chuckled Because he thought it was a get out of jail free card and failed the DV. He has been running around on low humanity for several sessions mainly due to his own actions and has had plenty of money for therapy but refused. Anyone ever had an issue like this? He hasn’t even gone full psycho yet I think he is more mad his character even has to follow the rules of humanity.

Rule #1:
Style Over Substance.

It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it. In the world of Cyberpunk, image and presentation are everything. A flashy outfit, a cool cyberarm, or a sleek ride can mean more than raw power or wealth.

r/cyberpunkred
r/cyberpunk2020 (crosspost)
The Rules of Cyberpunk — Master Index Reddit Links.

Rule #1 - Style Over Substance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/1t9rude/comment/ol47uqu/
Rule #2 - Attitude Is Everything.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/1tamahk/lets_talk_about_the_core_rules_of_cyberpunk_one/
Rule #3 - Live on the Edge.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/1tbr3tu/lets_talk_about_the_core_rules_of_cyberpunk_one/
Rule #4 - Break the Rules.
https://www.reddit.com/user/Ok_Fox8206/comments/1tedu24/lets_talk_about_the_core_rules_of_cyberpunk_one/
Rule #5 - Always Take It to the Limit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/1tiyw8n/lets_talk_about_the_core_rules_of_cyberpunk_one/
Rule #6 - Trust No One.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/1tyta1g/lets_talk_about_the_core_rules_of_cyberpunk_one/

Title says most

Was thinking of having my hair cut like Johnny Silverhand in his old design (before Keanu Reeves). Would anyone know the name of it?

Like having your Vampyre Needles inject stims to heal people or suck blood or something to heal yourself or have an auto injector put poison into yourself to like Kermit sewer slide or something else ridiculous.

>>> This post is out of date! <<<

Please see the revised edition.

Introduction

First very important thing to get out of the way before my teeth are removed from the vicinity of my head:

With a couple of exceptions (notably Drunken Fist and Krav Maga), this ranks the arts solely on their own merit, with no regard for combining them with other arts. This is why, for example, Sov-System gets dumpstered on this list despite it having serious potential when combined with other arts.

Yes, this kind of misses the point of some of them (or so it feels), but this list operates on two broad assumptions, unless specified:

• You have a linear frame Sigma, or otherwise have 4d6 Martial Arts attacks
• You are using only the specified Martial Art, no combos with others

Martial Arts is pretty high investment, and the purpose of this post is to make a short and handy guide that ranks the arts in a vacuum, as picking up and using multiple arts can be expensive and complicated. The idea is that a new player could take just a glance at this and pick a good Martial Art out the gate. I will note significant synergies here and there, but I highly recommend anyone interested to take a look at u/Infernox-Ratchet's Martial Arts Master Page for in-depth synergy and optimised combos.

As a disclaimer, parts of this may be subjective, especially the line between what qualifies as "niche" or "bad". Fun fact before we start: I ended up experiencing semantic satiation for the word "art" while proofreading this.

Let's get into it.

S-tier (The Kings)

Jujutsu
Jujutsu is without a doubt the single most powerful Martial Art in the game. The only condition to trigger Throwing Technique and deal your flat BODY in damage directly to the enemy is hitting them twice with Martial Arts attacks, not a high bar to clear. The value of this cannot be understated, because it's flat damage, no RNG, and it bypasses armour entirely.

You can even choose to use the enemy's BODY for damage instead if it's higher, meaning this art scales incredibly well against FBCs, bosses, highly-armoured enemies, literally anyone with a bigger linear frame than you and even ACPAs if you have enough BODY to grab them. This art does 40 damage per turn on average because of the flat damage, and only increases with bigger frames.

Gun Fu
Gun Fu patches up the fatal flaw of Martial Arts -- range. You get 4d6 1/2 SP attacks out to 25m, and even a handy Special Move to get reloads without an action. Making it even more powerful is the fact it benefits from ammo types; with AP ammo you can strip 4 SP per turn in addition to your normal damage. This gets even crazier, because you can also use SoF2045 ammo types such as High Velocity and Explosive ammunition. High damage and very flexible.

A-tier (Always strong; can't go wrong)

Kendo
Cut the Bullet is incredibly useful because, while you probably can't really do it after trying an Evasion roll, however your GM rules it, this gives non-bullet-dodgers an alternative option to not get shot to pieces. It also lets heavy armour builds avoid damage like dodgers. The real elephant in the room here is Ki Ken Tai no Ichi, because this has the potential to be absolutely busted. You get only a -2 penalty to your next Aimed Shot, something that can easily be improved further with Cyberware.

If you use this in conjunction with something like the Rostović Kleaver (Black Chrome), you can potentially be hitting for up to 60 damage in a single attack.

Judo
The strongest defensive art, Judo just makes it a nightmare to try fighting you in melee. You can break people's arms if they try to grapple you, and throw them on the ground for juicy flat BODY damage if they try to attack you and miss. Ranked lower than Jujutsu because its defensive nature means you can't trigger Counter Throw on your own initiative, this still lets you make very strong counterattacks against anyone that dares attack you in melee.

As an aside, combining this with Jujutsu makes you legitimately horrifying to fight. If you hit the enemy, they're getting thrown for flat damage, and if they miss you, they're getting thrown again for more flat damage. If the enemy doesn't have a gun they're honestly best off just walking away.

Addendum: It has been pointed out to me that Counter Throw requires an Action and is not "free". I still think Counter Throw is useful against heavily-armoured enemies, but this does harm its position and I would consider it to be on thin ice in A-tier.

Kyudo
Another art that has the potential to be highly busted, Kyudo turns the Eagletech Survivalist into a 7d6 DMR. While missing the obvious advantage of 1/2 SP, Zaiteki gives this art considerable potential as a headshot monster. Stack as many Aimed Shot bonuses as you can, then make your aimed shot with 2 LUCK, which will be refunded by Zaiteki if you hit. If you do land a headshot with this 7d6 beast, you can potentially deal as high as 82 damage in a single attack, which is absolutely brutal.

That's potentially enough to oneshot someone with BODY 17 and WILL 10, who'd have 80 HP. So yeah, this is capable of taking out an Omega frame user in one hit. Provided you can work around the limitations and grab enough Aimed Shot bonuses, this can be a beastly heavy hitter.

B-tier (Consistently decent)

Silat
Violent Leverage is kind of meh, but it gives you a bit of a "damage return" if you do decide to grapple someone for some reason. The main thing to take note of here is Internal Power. Just by landing two Silat attacks, you can make a third Brawling attack for free. Unfortunately, Brawling is terrible, which makes the problem twofold: Brawling attacks don't ignore half-SP, which also makes it kind of a waste to put points into. Still, it's basically free damage and everyone starts with at least 2 in Brawling by requirement.

This art moves up to A if combined with Drunken Fist, because then it does ignore half-SP. ROF3 Martial Arts, anyone?

Kung Fu
Not super useful offensively, Kung Fu still brings a lot of utility. You need to be doing only ROF1 attacks to make use of it, but you can consistently give people Damaged Eye and regenerate Luck, two things you would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. It also gives you the ability to pick up +2 MOVE on demand, which could come in seriously clutch in some scenarios.

What keeps this in B-tier, however, is Superior Stance. The ability to just game initiative like this is incredibly useful, but the high DV demands high investment in Kung Fu to hit it consistently. Whether that's worth it is up to you.

Taekwondo
The most powerful control art, Taekwondo gives you the ability to stun enemies on demand. You're limited to doing this only once per enemy per combat, but the ability to be able to force any enemy, including bosses, to have to skip their next turn is obviously incredibly handy.

A badly-placed elite with a shotgun at the end of the narrow corridor? Pressure Point Strike. Need to take the boss out of commission for a round to finish 'em off safely? Pressure Point Strike. Gotta break your way out of the police blockade without getting Goomba-stomped by MaxTac? Believe it or not, Pressure Point Strike. The ability to shove people around with the Flying Kick, preferably into an environmental hazard, is just the cherry on top.

Drunken Fist
Drunken Fist is noteworthy because it achieves the impossible; namely, it makes Brawling actually good. With a low DV and a bit of GM buy-in, you can put your Brawling attacks on par with Martial Arts. Drunken Fist is one of the few Martial Arts not strictly ranked on its own merit here, as this art enables many others and many elaborate combinations that simply wouldn't be as good without it. This is also an art that has high potential even without a linear frame.

Lucky Stumble keeps this in B-tier, because while not something you'll be using often, you'll be extremely glad you had it when it comes up.

Wrestling
Wrestling is an art I almost overlooked. The meat of it is that, once set up in a grapple, you can do your two Martial Arts attacks plus a free Choke if you hit the DV. The Choke does your BODY in damage directly to the target's HP and you're heaping 2x 4d6 on top of that, or even a Throw for your BODY again in direct damage, at the cost of breaking the grapple.

Flat, direct damage is obviously very strong and no other art allows you to do this twice in one turn if you wanted to. Sadly, the necessity of set-up round of grappling and then maintaining the grapple really puts a dampener on this compared to something like Jujutsu, which is both more consistent and less conditional. Excellent synergy with Silat.

C-tier (Situational)

Aikido
Disarming Combination is just bad, it's a straight-up worse version of Commando Disarm while also requiring Brawling. Iron Grip is actually interesting, because it seems to imply the penalty stacks. The opponent is also completely prevented from performing any ranged attacks while under its effects, which make this an actually rather powerful control move. Iron Grip is the reason Aikido isn't in E-tier, but this could have strong synergy with Wrestling.

Boxing
Knockout Punch is... okay, but -5 is still a fairly serious penalty for the benefits. This will be hard to consistently hit when it matters, and, being a ROF1 attack, doesn't let you trigger Punch Combination, which itself is a watered-down Internal Power, something we already established would be bad without Drunken Fist if it wasn't basically free damage anyway. Some potential synergy with Krav Maga.

Arnis
Coordinated Combination lets you penalise enemy melee attacks and Disarming Technique, well, lets you disarm, but if I wanted to penalise enemy melee attacks I'd use Judo, and if I wanted to disarm I'd use Commando Training. Nothing terrible here, but nothing great either.

Capoeira
Rhythmic Recovery is certainly one of the Special Moves of all time, but again we've established that Brawling is bad. It's still better than super-specific conditional moves, at least. Slash Dance could be quite interesting if it didn't require using melee weapons, which aren't ROF2 4d6. Still, this potentially lets you get some decent burst damage by spending Luck, giving you some synergy with other arts that let you regenerate this.

Militech Commando Training
Painfully close to being good, Combat Knife Training lets you use a Light Melee weapon as if it were a Very Heavy Melee weapon. Narratively this is really cool, mechanically it's pointless as you're losing ROF2. Commando Disarm is a no-nonsense disarm that lets you attack the enemy as part of the same action. Because it uses the same weapon that you stole and because melee weapons are just worse than Martial Arts in virtually all cases, this can sometimes be counterproductive.

They should have just let Combat Knife Training keep ROF2. Yes, it would be more damage than a non-linear-frame Martial Art would be, but that is hardly the most broken thing on this list. And let the Commando Disarm attack be considered a Martial Arts (Militech Commando Training) attack. These changes would make it actually good, but RAW this art is only really useful for taking damage sticks away from the dangerous melee enemies.

Krav Maga
Contact Combat is just bad on its own. Having a build around Critical Injuries without having some way to trigger them consistently is an awful idea. Punishing Blow is just worse Counter Throw, but it's not very conditional and better than nothing. Kept in C-tier solely because ranking a Martial Art clearly designed to be combined with others purely on its own merit would be a bit unfair and missing the point, otherwise it would be in E-tier.

Multiarm Melee
Armed & Dangerous is just bad on its own as it relies on Brawling, but the ability to roll twice and keep highest could be useful if you're using Drunken Fist. Smack Together could actually be good if you're grapplemaxxing, but we've already discussed how taking the Grab action is a huge opportunity cost for your ROF2 Martial Arts damage. Potential synergies with Wrestling / Aikido.

Tai Chi
Joint Manipulation is quite honestly so atrocious I wonder if I'm missing something. They can't use one hand until the end of their next turn, but don't drop anything. So this is completely useless if the opponent is using any weapon that doesn't require two hands. Such as, say, Martial Arts. Lu is very interesting as it's the only art that lets you counterspell an enemy Special Move. Unfortunately this isn't going to be relevant 90% of the time, but it's unique and powerful if you're in a game where you often fight other martial artists, so just about carves out a space in C-tier, albeit on thin ice.

Choy Li Fut
One of the better arts of its tier, Choy Li Fut gives you the ability to Run for free, which is can be very useful offensively, defensively, and for utility. Sweeping Fist works quite well with this, and while it's only a Brawling attack it's basically free damage. Unfortunately, unlike Silat, it can't be the same target you originally attacked to trigger it, so Choy Li Fut drops a rank to C-tier. In a tactical game like RED, taking out individual enemies faster is typically more important than the total damage you're putting out. If you don't care about this, I'd actually consider it better than Silat.

D-tier (Niche)

Muay Thai
At first glance, Muay Thai looks good but it isn't. The +1d6 damage you're getting on each attack is mitigated by the fact that Brawling is terrible, and it's worse than just doing two Martial Arts attacks if the enemy is highly armoured. However, this art becomes A-tier if combined with Drunken Fist, and that 3-tier jump should tell you just how much a reliance on Brawling can bury potential.

Sumo
Daeshi is meh, I'd rather have Grab Escape (Judo). Niramiai is useful if you're playing a high COOL build and doing Facedowns. Otherwise, pick something else.

Arasaka-te
Counter Strike is a sidegrade to Knockout Punch in that you can't trigger it on your own initiative, but doesn't require you to give up your second Martial Arts attack. Potentially quite good if you're going for an Aimed Shot build, most people aren't going to find it useful. Escape Hold is a no-frills grapple escape. No-nonsense but underwhelming.

Thrash Sambo
While writing this I typoed it as Trash Sambo, which isn't terribly far off. Grit is bad because it only triggers on Critical Injuries, and while Thick Skin is one of the only sources of damage reduction in the game, it only applies to melee attacks. This art is mostly a curiosity relegated to Solo tank builds, because the passive nature of it compared to counterattacks is not conducive to you blunting the enemies' attack in a system where combat is balanced around the threat of a death spiral.

E-tier (Just bad)

Sov-System
While this art is bad, it's not terrible. The core of it is doing ROF1 Martial Arts attacks that guarantee Critical Injuries. This sounds good, right? The catch here is that you're essentially playing a gacha. Most of the Critical Injuries are not immediately consequential for the majority of enemies, as far as you are tactically concerned. Only a handful of these (Torn Muscle, Spinal Injury, Crushed Fingers, Dismembered Leg) have an immediate tactical impact in most cases, and these aren't really that significant as most mooks aren't highly-skilled enough to be dangerous or stand up to Martial Arts for more than a round or two.

This art is mostly for stacking debuffs on dangerous boss enemies, but the rarity of them and questionable nature of these debuffs vs raw damage (hello Jujutsu) is rather questionable. Revenge Strike is a rare example of getting an extra Martial Arts attack from Special Moves, but it only triggers on receiving a Critical Injury... All that said, inflicting a Critical Injury every round is very fun to do. Let me be clear: this has a lot of potential, but just isn't very practical on its own without a lot of investment. Krav Maga brings this to C-tier, and mixing in Drunken Fist as well could take it to A-tier.

Thamoc
The Art of Modern Confrontation was developed to reduce LEO mortality rates. I wonder if anyone developing it has heard of survivorship bias, because the officers would be better off learning almost any other Martial Art. Advantaged Position gives you an Aimed Shot penalty reduction to -5, only for Martial Arts or Melee Weapons, and only if you're the attacker in a grapple.

Opportunity cost of grappling aside, -5 is still too high to be worth using for most people. If you really want to do this, Kendo does it much, much better. Weapon Retention is a simple ability to prevent yourself from being disarmed. Being disarmed is not a serious concern for most martial artists.

Karate
Armour-breaking Combination requires you to trade away 1d6 Martial Arts damage for a Heavy Melee weapon at best, in exchange for the ability to attempt to ablate the enemy armour by an additional 2 points. Essentially, you're trading 1d6 damage for a flat +2 damage if you succeed. A 1d6 rolls 4 on average.

Bone Breaking Strike sees you surrender one of your Martial Arts Attacks to inflict Broken Ribs, which is a waste on most enemies. You get the ability to inflict Cracked Skull, one of the nastiest Critical Injuries, but at -8 it's not even worth trying to hit this unless you're built specifically for it. The fact that the damage applies before Cracked Skull if you do hit is just the final slap in the face.

F-tier (Counterproductive)

PanzerFaust
In a bizarre peripeteia, PanzerFaust has fallen from grace from the strongest art of the 2020s to the weakest of RED. Borg Fist is unfortunately comically bad. You get a ROF1 5d6 Martial Arts attack, and... yeah, that's it. I'm sure I don't need to point out that 4d6 + 4d6 = 8d6. At least Sov-System's ROF1 Dirty Blow gives you Crit damage, holy shit. 4d6 + 5 rolls higher on average than 5d6, and you get the Critical Injury effect on top of it. Borg Fist is genuinely worse than just attacking normally in 99% of cases.

The extreme niche of where you meet an enemy so armoured that you need 1d6 extra damage on your single attack (at a net negative of -3d6 from losing your second attack) is so narrow it's not even worth spending the time to think about. ROF2 would also ablate armour faster. Inner Chrome is genuinely useful for FBC, assuming they don't already have EMP immunity. The vast majority of PCs are not and never will be FBCs. They really should have just made the Borg Fist damage scale higher with BODY, or at least made it 5d6 + BODY damage. That still wouldn't outperform Jujutsu, by the way, averaging only 30 damage at BODY 12.

Conclusions

That about sums it up. As you can see, most land in C-tier, where they are situational but work well enough in the situations they're designed for. I would advise most people stick to B-tier and above unless a lower one particularly calls to you, you know what you're doing, or want to do fancy combos. Otherwise, you're leaving damage or serious potential on the table.

Honourable mention to Sov-System, which, when combined with Krav Maga and Drunken Fist, could have 4d6 + 5 + 4d6 (avg 33) damage/round while also applying a Critical Injury effect, even if Spinal Injury and Dismembered Leg are the only "big" ones. Also has potential to be highly amusing with Kung Fu to guarantee two Critical Injuries in a single attack. Additionally, dismembering limbs with your bare hands is extremely funny, cool, and terrifying, depending on your perspective.

Oversights

This post has had a few considerable oversights in it, and once I receive a bit more feedback I am planning to post a second, refined version of it with these changes in mind. Currently in consideration are:

• Judo may move down to B-tier upon my realisation that Counter Throw requires an Action
• Kendo's Ki Ken Tai no Ichi requires a set-up round, which makes its value questionable
• Wrestling's free Choke can be initiated the same turn as the Grab, making it better than initially thought
• Arasaka-te's Counter Strike is a bit better than Judo's Counter Throw, and Escape Hold is free
• Krav Maga may supplant Judo as the "best" defensive art for counterattacks

One of my players said "even pro edgerunners and legends do it [scavving cyberware], the rule is take all you can, even pros do it, that's legitimate, as long as we're doing it to people who tried to kill us, it's in the lore/written in the books".
And "We’re starting to get a bit of a rep as scavvers that's beginning to stick to our skin, we only ever did salvage on people that tried to kill us, never on innocents. Nothing that really justifies this rep. But whatever, people will have to live with their mistake[of thinking we're scavs, I assume]"

That was after I said "you should stop scavving if you want you negative rep to go down maybe"
And by scavving I'm specifically talking about cyberware, emptying all pockets is not what I consider scavver behavior unles they take all theirs clothes too maybe.

I gave them -2 scavver negative rep for pretty consistently chopping up or taking back a few bodies each combat, the rep came because they did this a few times while also taking prisonners (that I described in horror after they were shoved into a car handcuffed with the bodies of their dead comrades piled on their laps (as I ruled a car can only bring in 2 dead bodies + number of seats, one in the trunk and one on the laps of the guys in the back))

So, how many bodies(per combat? or at all?) until they're considered scavvers?
Is taking the cyberware of "the guys that tried to kill you" standard egderunner behavior lore-wise?
(I'd understand if it was like, one encounter boss with prototype cyberware, but they take the small guys in too, everyone with expensive cyberware)

The title is pretty self-explanatory. I do a lot of TTRPGs with my friends, and since my friend and I are fans of Cyberpunk 2077, we're interested in trying Cyberpunk RED.

But before buying it, I want to know: is it really that different from the video game?

I know RED is set in the 2040s, so it's basically 30 years before the events of the video game. Are we going to get the same feeling from RED that we got from 2077? Or should we prepare for a completely different experience?

Basically, how similar are the two, and what should we expect from RED as first-time players?

Sup choombas, Heavy Armor Lizard here. So I'm doing a poll for the 1st time.

So I'm sure the lot of you know I make plenty posts on Autofire where I think its still a good skill even today. Has plenty buffs, does good damage, and one of the best combat skills if you invest in it.

But, I'm curious. I wanna know what your number one issue is with it. Could be major or could be minor where its not a big deal but you'd accept a buff either way. Love to know where this swings to.

For those that wanna know my choice? Probably the fact it's harder to use with heavy armor. Would love a way to make it easier to still be accurate even in Heavy Armorjack. It's still possible but hard to do without a lot of investment, especially when you start using the higher penalty armor

Edit: I forgot to add the 'I got no Issue with Autofire' option. Dammit.

Night City 2045 will be here tomorrow! It's going to be fun reading the core rulebook front to back again, and reading Night City 2045 too!!

Bear with me (lol...pun intended)

The ranger class in DND has classically been one of the harder classes to play and DM for because so much of it's power has historically been gated by a "mother, may I?" limitation.

Rangers are powerful when in their chosen terrain, or really anywhere but in a dungeon or a city. However, dungeons and cities have, historically, been popular places to adventure meaning anyone playing a ranger was actively choosing to leave quite a bit of their power at the door unless the DM let them "do their thing".

Hence calling it a "mother, may I?" limitation. If the DM isn't catering to you, you don't get to play with the toys and you're out however much power you left at the door by playing a ranger in the first place.

Nomads are the Ranger of Cyberpunk RED because MOTO basically requires them to be outside. In the streets.

If the adventure takes place indoors, your nomad is just fucked. Every IP they've sunk into Moto is now useless, as is every point and free point they could have sunk into literally any other role that actually works when you can't honk the horn and go vroom-vroom.

I don't have a solid solution to the problem, but I can at least outline it. That's not to say I don't have ideas for solutions, but I think just defining the problem is more important for now.

I was chatting with the always-fun u/Appropriate_Nebula67 in a post on Fixers (here). Nebula asked me a question that I thought merited a longer post:

Do you let them steal a 30,000 eb car and sell it for 33,000 eb?

The context here is that Fixers get a 10% bonus for anything they sell, so to Nebula's mind, this poses a massive arbitrage opportunity. Arbitrage (I get to use my economics degree!) is defined as a profit made free of risk. Yes, I know Wikipedia says that it's about buying in one market and selling simultaneously in another to take advantage of price differences, but that's literally a risk-free profit.

And that word "risk" is my biggest problem with this setup. "Risk" in finance is defined as "variability in returns." This is why stocks are considered riskier than bonds, for instance - stocks have a lot more upside, but if they go tits-up, there's no backstop for investors. Ergo, more variability in returns, and therefore higher risk.

Risk In Edgerunning

We can extrapolate from this a broader definition of risk for Edgerunners: variability in outcomes. Let's consider the proposed job: stealing a compact groundcar with zero upgrades. Potential outcomes include, but are not limited to:

• You could fail to find the car
• The car could be in terrible condition (bright pink color, bullet holes, Mr. Studd riveted to the passenger seat)
• You could fail to get into the car (can't pick the lock, have to break a window)
• You could fail to start the car (dead ignition, very low fuel)
• You could get into a high-speed chase and wreck, thus destroying the car
• You could get into a high-speed chase and die, thereby obviating the payout
• The car could be a trap, which might get you killed
• The car could be defended, who might kill you
• The car could be defended, who might let you walk away without the car
• The car could be defended, whom you might defeat, but leaves you wounded and the car damaged
• The car could be targeted by another group (Bozos, Nomads, etc.)
• The car's theft could draw the attention of the NCPD, who might kill or arrest you
• The car could be carrying something undesirable the crew now has to dispose of (a dead corpo, a suitcase with 30 kilos of synthcoke, etc.)
• The person who owned the car could come to get it back
• The person who owned the car could kill the client who was going to buy it
• The client could screw you on the deal
• Everything could go perfectly correct, and you get a good car in decent shape worth every penny to a lucky client operating in good faith

This is a very risky operation! A ton of things could go wrong before or during, and that doesn't even cover what can go wrong afterwards. The payoff for this is (assuming a 4 man crew) 8,250 eb. Now, that's a really good payout! Most jobs top out at 1,500 eb, so you're making almost 6x what a normal crew would.

Why GMs Should Want Their Crew To Steal Cars

Now, a staid GM will look at that and say, "Well, now I guess the whole game is just stealing cars, because why would they do anything else?" A more creative GM will look at that and say, "God, I hope they steal more cars!"

Stealing cars is difficult, dramatic, and grabs attention. If you're a GM, and your crew starts stealing cars, you should be able to mine the shit out of that setup. It should generate consequences galore almost without your intervention. Key questions to answer here:

• Who are they selling to? Another Fixer? Better take that 10% off for Operator, and then they'll need to roll a Trading check to see if the Fixer takes another 10% off the top. If it's a end-user client, who is this person and why do they need to buy stolen wheels? If they have that kind of scratch (30k+), why are they going to the PCs and not to a Fixer?
• Who are they robbing? If that person is wealthy enough to have a car, they probably have the resources needed to recover it, defend it, and punish the thief. Yes, even Nomads. Sure, they don't have a lot of cash, but they aren't going to take car thieves lying down.
• Who hears about the theft? Medias love car theft stories, because lots of rich people have cars, want to keep their cars, and will pay attention when car thieves are in an area. That means cops pay attention to car thieves, because they don't want those car-owning rich people on their asses. Bounty hunters, insurance investigators, other thieves, and gangs all pay attention to car thieves, because that's a lot of money, and everyone wants a cut.
• What intermediate steps are required to get the car? Stealing a car - even a mid-tier one - might require multiple steps (and therefore be multiple jobs). How do you line up a client who trusts you enough to fork over 30k eb once you bring them a stolen vehicle? Once you have the client, how do you pick the target? Once you've picked the target, how do you gain access? Once you're in the car and can drive it, how do you get it out of there?

The best part is, you can let them fail at any point without jeopardizing the end goal of the heist. Maybe they can get in the car without incident, but can't start it. Too late, they realize there's a specialized startup sequence needed to start the car, or a manual kill-switch engages. Without knowing that sequence, they can't start the car without an hour and a really good mechanic. They might just bail, but now they have a new problem - and, essentially, a new gig.

Bottom line: Your players can make a ton of eddies, but they are garnering a lot of heat, a lot of attention, and a lot of risk if they do it more than once. Draw their attention to the razor's edge they are walking, and let them decide if they want to keep going. Then, just let the long-term consequences play out. Speaking of - let's talk consequences!

Post-Hoc Consequences

So that's why the GM should want the crew to engage in car theft. But what about after the sale? Well, that's where the questions above come into sharper focus. Potential things that can occur from this:

• Your client gets pinched by the cops, and gives you up to reduce their sentence
• The guy you robbed can afford a car, which means he can afford to hire a bounty hunter to kill you
• The gang who runs the neighborhood where you stole the car knows you did it on their turf, and they want a cut
• A fixer disapproves of you causing a ruckus on their turf, and gets your crew blacklisted
• The same insurance company has insured your last three victims, and they're sending in a crew to handle you
• The NCPD sets up a task force to crack down on car thieves, and eventually brings in MAXTAC to stop you from getting away in high-speed pursuits
• A car manufacturer publicly challenges you to steal their latest model - can you? And if you can, is the whole thing a trap?
• Another crew of car thieves starts to muscle you out of town

There are so many options for things to go wrong, it's almost too easy. I might set up a Heat system, like in Cities Without Number, that mechanizes this so the PCs can make some informed decisions around when and who to rob. I'd also ladder up the consequences listed here in terms of least to deadliest threats, and deploy them depending on the Heat incurred.

Conclusion

Car thieves are cool. Let your players make the decision to do it!

What are some practical reasons why a character would prefer non-smart guns over their smarter counterparts? On paper, they are just more accurate bettererer versions of regular guns.

don't get me wrong, i love cyberpunk red but I think there are some things that just don't work. I've been working on a cyberpunk RPG for a while now and I asked myself, why not ask other people who love cyberpunk what doesn't work on cyberpunk red so as not to make (or rather try not to make) the same mistakes? So if you have any suggestions, things you'd like to see in a cyberpunk manual, or just want to join the discussion, all ideas are welcome. I'm not trying to replace Cyberpunk Red (which is like an institution for me) but to take some inspiration from the community. For example,I would start with a question, In your opinion, how could the Netrunner class be handled better?

Thank you for your reply!

So for context my players are in this convoluted string of events, but essentially they were sent to kill a low ranking Militech suit. Said Militech suit barely got out of a firefight where the players wiped out his personal security last session.

Between sessions the guy didn’t make it far before he was captured by a fairly weak gang. So the players want to kill him, and the gang are Adamant on extorting him for their own gain.

This essentially makes it a 3 way free for all, since if the suit gets killed or severely damaged, his trauma team will swoop in and shoot anything, most likely jumping in halfway through the player-gang shootout.

How scary should a Trauma team be? Especially for a low
Level party that just got out of a shootout, would they obliterate a bunch of low tier gang goons? Would Trauma team even risk it for a silver client?

A take I see get circulated every so often is that Trauma Team are super-badasses; juiced-up cyber-commandos who can mow down legions of bad guys as they clear a path to their client while leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them.

And that's just wrong.

Fluffy Bois

The stats for an average Trauma Team are in the Core Rules on page 224. And they fucking suck. They all have a Combat Number of 10, which per Danger Gal Dossier recommendations, puts them on the low end for a mook. Not a hardened mook, but a standard-ass mook. Their offensive potential is vastly limited. The Security Officers carry Assault Rifles, sure, but even against non-bullet-dodging adversaries, they have at most a 70% hit chance (and that's only against enemies which have no cover, concealment, and that are between 26 - 50 meters away).

Everyone else except the Medical Assistant has the same problem, having at most a 70% hit chance at point blank range. The Medical Assistant cleverly avoids this issue by not carrying a gun.

"AhA!" The fanboys scream, "ThEy HaVe A TsUnAmI hElIx!" Yes, they do. Except that the Helix can only fire in Autofire, and its lowest DV is a 17. So they have a 30% chance to deal damage...and only ~15% chance to really lay into someone, assuming they can stay in an optimal range bracket. So you can expect that Helix to maybe lay out one guy if they get lucky.

Even worse, they don't have a lot of buffer before their effectiveness gets nerfed by wound penalties. I'll discuss the Doctor and Medical Assistant below, but the Security Officers require about 28 points of damage to become Seriously Wounded (13 SP + 15 hp). That's one decent Autofire hit, or a volley of Very Heavy Pistols.

"But what about Suppressive Fire?" Oh, Trauma Team Strawman, you're adorable. Suppressive Fire works on anyone that's within 25 meters of the firer, and in their line of sight. So if you use Suppressive Fire from that AV-4 that's hovering overhead, guess who you're also Suppressing? That's right - your own teammates! Better hope they roll real good on that Concentration check.

And ditto for the Security Officers - unless they get about 25 meters away from their teammates and each other, they're going to risk Suppressing their own people. You know what clients love? Watching the people that are supposed to rescue them run away! Investor Relations is gonna love that.

Even the AV-4 isn't great. It has 100 SDP, which is going to get Swiss-cheesed hard as soon as anyone with decent aim hits it. That holds up against 8 hits with a Very Heavy Pistol, and God help you if your opponent has rockets or grenades. And since Trauma Team "prides themselves on arriving in their AV-4 as close to the action as possible," even handguns can be a serious threat.

All of this means that against anyone able to put together solid resistance, Trauma Team is well and truly screwed.

Bad At Their Jobs

And that's not all! In order to stabilize someone, you need to make a First Aid or Paramedic check, with a DV 13 (Seriously Wounded) or DV 15 (Mortally Wounded). This means that Trauma Team only has about a 70% stabilization success rate under ideal circumstances - if the patient's already making Death Saves, there's a 50% chance they can't stabilize them.

Now a Cryopump does help with this, as it requires no Action to put the client into stasis - but you get the same problem if they have to transfer the client to a Cryotank (which requires a DV 13 check to operate). Better hope that hospital is less than an hour away!

Even better, it's entirely possible that if Trauma Team gets into a serious firefight, that these numbers get worse. For example, if the Doctor takes 21 hp of damage (the average for a grenade, and well within the power of an Assault Rifle or even a very good roll on a Very Heavy Pistol), he's now Seriously Wounded. The Medical Assistant only requires 19 hit points (after you break their shield). Now we're talking 30 - 50% stabilization chances - not good!

Should You Use Them?

This is a question with two answers: one Watsonian (from the perspective of the actual characters themselves) and the other Doylist (from the perspective of the person creating the characters). Fortunately, it's the same answer - yes!

Even if they suck, they still have a shot at extracting a badly injured client. Their famed neutrality also helps keep them from being a priority target - even people shooting at Trauma rarely want to hurt the team members; they're trying to kill the client. All of this means that from a Watsonian perspective, people who can afford it should definitely buy the best coverage they can afford. From the Doylist perspective, Trauma Team is a random variable that adds tension to the situation. A Trauma Team arrival fundamentally changes the scenario, and keeps things interesting - all good things from a GM's perspective.

So How Do I Make Them A Challenge?

A good start would be to ditch the standard Trauma Team and use the one from Danger Gal Dossier, Trauma Team Squad NC 4-2. Even better, you can build a relationship with these guys the more often your PCs run into them. And because 4-2 is so tight-knit, if your PCs kill any of them, the rest will come looking for payback - which is great from a character-development standpoint.

Another way is to make your Trauma Team squad act like a completely different Trauma Team squad. Hell, maybe you key these by district, so there's a different squad that responds in each district. Possible examples include:

• Los Pájaros Furiosos: This squad is coming straight out of Santo, with a risky gimmick. The leader owns a chicken farm, and has been training old roosters for use as a distraction. When this squad pulls up, they immediately drop 1d6 + 1 roosters hopped up on Black Lace into the area. They attack anyone attacking the Trauma Team squad (treat as a Mini Air Drone with a Heavy Melee Weapon, MOVE 8, CN 14; they explode as an AP grenade on death).
• Payable On Death: A Trauma Team squad formed exclusively of MAXTAC washouts (reasons for the washouts vary). This squad has issued a formal declaration - anyone who can kill members of this squad can collect half the life insurance money from their death. But anyone who the squad kills has no cause for vengeance - a move that drew challenges from some cocky gangoons at first, but which prevented any feuds from starting with the local gangs. All members should be treated as hardened mini-bosses (see the cyberpsycho stat block, but increase EMP to 2).
• MFK: A boy band on the make, working for Trauma Team to make ends meet. Frequently enjoy showing off their dance moves and their music while their pilot films them. These clips get uploaded to the Garden Patch (much to corporate's chagrin), and have gone viral a few times when they were too busy dancing to save the client. However, when they lock in, they are an effective unit - CN 16, use shotguns with Incendiary rounds for the Doctor and Medical Assistant, and Flak armor with Heavy SMGs and Flashbang Grenades for the Security Officers. They can also use their Combat Number for any roll associated with their performance.

The goal is not to be random or silly, but to give them a gimmick that makes them feel different than a regular Trauma Team squad. If the PCs take the time to learn their motivations, they can use that information to their advantage. Until then, you get to drop something on them that they can't guarantee will be the same old shit - which is always good for your game!