I’m running a Cyberpunk RED campaign, and my players are motivated purely by money, revenge, and lust. I keep forgetting this and throwing scenarios at them with moral ambiguity, or the opportunity to help others.
Bless them for staying true to character. It makes hooks a little repetitive, however.
Gragon Master
You can thank the decker for that.
I really like the treatment of metahumans in the earlier editions. I really like orcs getting the short end of the stick in terms of lifespan and appearance. It makes a dark setting even darker.
I fucking love Shadowrun.
My group doesn’t like magic with their cyberpunk dystopias, so I’m stuck playing Cyberpunk RED. Which is fine. I’ve picked up a bunch of the fun non-magical stuff from SR, and borrowed a few of the megacorps.
We’re still having fun, but I still want metahumans and magic.
The lore and setting are perfect.
The decking/net-running problem is definitely a thing, tho. Doing it well requires the GM to build a really tight scenario, which is hard to do on a regular basis.
That’s been my experience too. My players are much harder on themselves with hard fails than I would be.
style over substance, choom
I’m a forever GM. I’d like to create totally unique and interesting cultures, but I only have so many hours. Like, I have a max of four hours of prep time a week, and I need to make battlemaps, tokens, NPCs, chart out the main plot, and build beats for the next session.
Sometimes I think I’m creating something new. But it’s usually some trope I forgot about.
I have to roll in the open, otherwise I’d fudge every roll. I don’t want my players to have a bad time. I equate failing on a roll with not having fun.
Instead, I roll in the open, and try to provide multiple ways to give a hint, or out of potentially lethal scenarios.
Get your players to tell the story.
As a GM, I’m not the only story teller at the table. I ask my players to provide backstory, flesh out NPCs, explain how/why their characters can do things that aren’t on the sheet.
It takes a lot of load off me, and it makes it more fun for everyone.
At that point you’re basically forcing the wizard to spend that spell slot. They don’t want to (all the other wizards will laugh at something so basic) but they can’t let the party down.
Sculpt spells is a necessity for D&D firebois.
That or a perpetual “we’re hiring” sign on the local jobs board.
That looks neat! Thanks for posting it!
I’ve been playing Cyberpunk RED for around a year. Backstory is a huge part of the character creation process and GMs are encouraged to use backstory as hooks whenever possible.
I don’t really like it.
Some players like playing along with the backstory. Other players disengage fairly quickly.
It’s just another source for hooks and set pieces. If players like it, I roll with it, if they don’t, I let those plot lines dribble out. But it doesn’t really change the GMing or creative process.
Commoner here: this is accurate.
I feel like there’s some sort of corollary to Murphy’s Law, where players will think of the one thing I didn’t include in my session prep.
Gotta break into the cult compound? “Let’s use the hot air balloon we saw six sessions ago”
I love it when players do stuff like that, but it’s a pain in the butt. It taught me to prepare less.
Isn’t that where Amazon makes 1/3 of their money?
I hear good stuff about Blades in the Dark, but I’m not too familiar with it. I wonder if that would work.