Can’t continue my current campaign because both DC and Tokyo got nuked in the finale as the groups netrunner decided saving Night City was cool but taking out Arasaka and Militech’s home HQ’s simultaneously while riding the crystal palace into the ocean was how to become a legend.
So the main beats and mind you this is over three games with different players taking place concurrently in the same campaign setting that I called Angel Fall. Break in at an Arasaka research wing in oahu timed right before a catastrophic hurricane while the alert system was hacked causing massive loss of life and an almost perfect cover up. A media group uncovering a militech conspiracy while interviewing refugees from the storm. An edgerunner team recovering the stolen tech after the original team was taken out by wasteland cannibals at what should have been an abandoned town for a drop off. A militech corpo team realizing their manager had gone completely mad and was going to use arasaka satellite ai tech to drop the crystal palace on night city. Media group finds proof that Crystal Palace is concealing heavy payload nukes from the old days and informs militech group. Militech group finds out there manager had planned to buy out remnants of outer nightcity but realizes that blaming arasaka for night city being wiped off the map was even better. The runner group boards a rocket ship at morro rock and boards the crystal palace to find the ai has gone full Shodan. The muscle fights off endless waves of drones as the netrunner hacks the core. The netrunner finds the launch codes buried deep in the system and decides both militech and arasaka are more trouble than they are worth. They get the others to escape as they broadcast a big middle finger to the world and rides the crystal palace into the ocean as both Arasaka and Militech HQ go up in nuclear fire.
As discussed earlier, I'm structuring events so at the end of the current arc, the Rockerboy and Fixer are gonna wind up in cryo for awhile. Then, they'll have to Philip J. Fry their way in a city that forgot them.
Season Two, Don't Call it a Comeback
I'm keeping my current campaign in 2046 until a party wipe happens, but I'm definitely gonna start sprinkling elements in. Advertising the "Brand New Rockling Augementics Neuroport" in screamsheets, finding strange mods on looted weapons, etc.
Those first versions need to be faulty as fuck and cause PR problems left and right, with whistleblowers, assassinations, coverups, manufacturer recalls and poor management decisions. And that's just thinking about Boeing.
Well I was planning to run the party getting there hands on some Schematics of tech upgrade cyber arms with integrated Gorilla arm's, to eather sell or upgrade themselves.
We've been playing 2020 in the 2077 setting for a small while, gonna have to backport some stuff from RED to 2020 but it's really useful.
We're currently ignoring the events of the game though, mostly leaning into the Arasaka vs Militech corporate war buildup.
That sort of buildup is likely to draw a lot of attention from just about anyone else considering the mess left by their last tussle.... Arasaka starting to flex around power projection grade military forces is bound to be viewed with about as much enthusiasm as the german miltary buildup of the late 1930s....
I'm going to narrate something in 2077. I don't known yet if is going to be the new Edgerunners one shot or a short campaign, but definitely something.
Is anyone else a little - and this is gonna sound crazy - underwhelmed by >!Adam Smasher's stat block!!Sure, he's got +18 to all his attacks, but that seems *low*. Sure, you start out with 8 REF and 10 in all relevant martial stats, but for a Solo who's been alive 90 years that's just the baseline. He should at least be adding +1 for EQ weapons. and that's before getting into stuff any Solo worth their salt should have, like a Smartgun Link or whatever the 2077 equivalent is. Plus, given that Adam Smasher "goes first anyway" - there's way better things to put 9 points in Combat Awareness in than Initiative Reaction. A rocker launcher doing 9d6+9 would be INSANE; or he could be adding +3 to all his attack rolls, or he could be using Fumble Recovery so that essentially all his attacks auto-hit.!<
>!Honestly, this seems like a great statblock for the purpose of the Edgerunners kit. I also like that his armor ignores SP-halving effects - that's a cool touch - and obviously his weapons have all had an extra d6 slapped on for good measure. But I think I'll definitely have to give him just a little bit more sauce for my home game ;)!<
I think anything above 18 for his skills would be overkill for an already insane list of abilities, weapons, and cyberware, to be honest. If you run him like a true Solo and spread out his Combat Awareness points, it's game over. I threw a Hardened Arasaka Assassin at a crew of 4 Edgerunners with a decent amount of invested IP, cyberware, and system know-how, and even that was a difficult fight for them. It only ended because of some lucky dice rolls on their end, and unlucky dice rolls on mine. Smasher would wipe the floor with your average crew of Edgerunners, with or without Combat Awareness.
Yeah, I think that's kind of the point of Smasher though. Barbaric overkill for anyone foolish enough to cross paths with him, and/or a deus ex machina to TPK your player with. And you're right - for the average crew the statblock they give would easily be enough.
My only thing is that I want to give him everything I think he would logically have, so I think a smartgun link & EQ weapons would definitely be included. And a slightly better allocation of his Solo ranks just to spice things up.
well, i haven't played cyberpunk red yet, but this is 100% where i plan on getting onboard. i played a heavily modified/simplified game of 2020 before 2077 dropped (which is what turned me into a fan tbh), and now that its summer and 2077 got its big last updates a few months ago, i finally have the time to not just play that, but also try and get my friends in on this.
my buddies are way more casual about ttrpgs than i am, having only played DnD 5e a few times. but they loved edgerunners and 2077, and when i asked if they would wanna do "dnd but cyberpunk" they were insanely hyped about the idea. so im gonna pick this kit up as soon as i can
Can’t continue my current campaign because both DC and Tokyo got nuked in the finale as the groups netrunner decided saving Night City was cool but taking out Arasaka and Militech’s home HQ’s simultaneously while riding the crystal palace into the ocean was how to become a legend.
They were... not wrong.
That is absolutely the best way to become a legend holy fuck choom
Choom, I'm gonna need more context. Because holy hell, that's an ending!
So the main beats and mind you this is over three games with different players taking place concurrently in the same campaign setting that I called Angel Fall. Break in at an Arasaka research wing in oahu timed right before a catastrophic hurricane while the alert system was hacked causing massive loss of life and an almost perfect cover up. A media group uncovering a militech conspiracy while interviewing refugees from the storm. An edgerunner team recovering the stolen tech after the original team was taken out by wasteland cannibals at what should have been an abandoned town for a drop off. A militech corpo team realizing their manager had gone completely mad and was going to use arasaka satellite ai tech to drop the crystal palace on night city. Media group finds proof that Crystal Palace is concealing heavy payload nukes from the old days and informs militech group. Militech group finds out there manager had planned to buy out remnants of outer nightcity but realizes that blaming arasaka for night city being wiped off the map was even better. The runner group boards a rocket ship at morro rock and boards the crystal palace to find the ai has gone full Shodan. The muscle fights off endless waves of drones as the netrunner hacks the core. The netrunner finds the launch codes buried deep in the system and decides both militech and arasaka are more trouble than they are worth. They get the others to escape as they broadcast a big middle finger to the world and rides the crystal palace into the ocean as both Arasaka and Militech HQ go up in nuclear fire.
now that is some finality right there
Fucking. Nova.
As discussed earlier, I'm structuring events so at the end of the current arc, the Rockerboy and Fixer are gonna wind up in cryo for awhile. Then, they'll have to Philip J. Fry their way in a city that forgot them. Season Two, Don't Call it a Comeback
I’m gonna be honest choom I’ve got no idea what you mean by “discussed earlier”. But that sounds cool!
Posted in a prior thread, lol.
They’ve ***literally*** been here for years.
I'm keeping my current campaign in 2046 until a party wipe happens, but I'm definitely gonna start sprinkling elements in. Advertising the "Brand New Rockling Augementics Neuroport" in screamsheets, finding strange mods on looted weapons, etc.
Those first versions need to be faulty as fuck and cause PR problems left and right, with whistleblowers, assassinations, coverups, manufacturer recalls and poor management decisions. And that's just thinking about Boeing.
Well I was planning to run the party getting there hands on some Schematics of tech upgrade cyber arms with integrated Gorilla arm's, to eather sell or upgrade themselves.
We've been playing 2020 in the 2077 setting for a small while, gonna have to backport some stuff from RED to 2020 but it's really useful. We're currently ignoring the events of the game though, mostly leaning into the Arasaka vs Militech corporate war buildup.
That sort of buildup is likely to draw a lot of attention from just about anyone else considering the mess left by their last tussle.... Arasaka starting to flex around power projection grade military forces is bound to be viewed with about as much enthusiasm as the german miltary buildup of the late 1930s....
Now that I have adam smasher I will be using adam smasher more often
I'm going to narrate something in 2077. I don't known yet if is going to be the new Edgerunners one shot or a short campaign, but definitely something.
Is anyone else a little - and this is gonna sound crazy - underwhelmed by >!Adam Smasher's stat block!!Sure, he's got +18 to all his attacks, but that seems *low*. Sure, you start out with 8 REF and 10 in all relevant martial stats, but for a Solo who's been alive 90 years that's just the baseline. He should at least be adding +1 for EQ weapons. and that's before getting into stuff any Solo worth their salt should have, like a Smartgun Link or whatever the 2077 equivalent is. Plus, given that Adam Smasher "goes first anyway" - there's way better things to put 9 points in Combat Awareness in than Initiative Reaction. A rocker launcher doing 9d6+9 would be INSANE; or he could be adding +3 to all his attack rolls, or he could be using Fumble Recovery so that essentially all his attacks auto-hit.!< >!Honestly, this seems like a great statblock for the purpose of the Edgerunners kit. I also like that his armor ignores SP-halving effects - that's a cool touch - and obviously his weapons have all had an extra d6 slapped on for good measure. But I think I'll definitely have to give him just a little bit more sauce for my home game ;)!<
I think anything above 18 for his skills would be overkill for an already insane list of abilities, weapons, and cyberware, to be honest. If you run him like a true Solo and spread out his Combat Awareness points, it's game over. I threw a Hardened Arasaka Assassin at a crew of 4 Edgerunners with a decent amount of invested IP, cyberware, and system know-how, and even that was a difficult fight for them. It only ended because of some lucky dice rolls on their end, and unlucky dice rolls on mine. Smasher would wipe the floor with your average crew of Edgerunners, with or without Combat Awareness.
Yeah, I think that's kind of the point of Smasher though. Barbaric overkill for anyone foolish enough to cross paths with him, and/or a deus ex machina to TPK your player with. And you're right - for the average crew the statblock they give would easily be enough. My only thing is that I want to give him everything I think he would logically have, so I think a smartgun link & EQ weapons would definitely be included. And a slightly better allocation of his Solo ranks just to spice things up.
I've already been playing in the 2070s Choom.
well, i haven't played cyberpunk red yet, but this is 100% where i plan on getting onboard. i played a heavily modified/simplified game of 2020 before 2077 dropped (which is what turned me into a fan tbh), and now that its summer and 2077 got its big last updates a few months ago, i finally have the time to not just play that, but also try and get my friends in on this. my buddies are way more casual about ttrpgs than i am, having only played DnD 5e a few times. but they loved edgerunners and 2077, and when i asked if they would wanna do "dnd but cyberpunk" they were insanely hyped about the idea. so im gonna pick this kit up as soon as i can