This week, Rocky and Jords watched some westerns, and tried to figure out how to bring a lone wolf, wild frontier vibe to a group of people playing a game indoors.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Jordan: Alright. Hi, welcome to Playtonics. A RPG design podcast where we design sessions, not rules. Uh, I’m Jordan.
[00:00:10] Rocky: I’m Rocky. Um, and each week we are going to design an RPG session, uh, thinking about not just what rules we’d use to run it, but also what kinds of prep we would do and how we would run it at the table.
[00:00:26] Jordan: On this week’s episode, we’re going to be chatting about Cyberpunk as a genre. Uh, Cyberpunk. Draws on some of the, like, most fun tropes that I find in science fiction media I absolutely love its continual battle against the authorities, where your, your characters pretty much define themselves by the systems that they’re railing against,
[00:00:47] Rocky: Oh, man, you have, you have jumped like all the way in.
[00:00:51] Jordan: Too deep? Do we want to back it
[00:00:52] Rocky: No, no, no, no, this is good. Let’s, let’s just get straight into it. So as probably the person who got me back into cyberpunk, I think. How would you define cyberpunk, Jords?
[00:01:05] Jordan: I’m gonna take a pretty classical phrase that pops up all the time. I think it is the intersection between high tech and low lives. Uh, cyberpunk fiction, for me, centers around the characters who are up against the systems that define their lives. Uh, I think for the good cyberpunk stuff, you gotta really have that punk element to it. you can’t just have, like, regular people going about their lives, because that’s not interesting, that doesn’t really explore the tension in the system. I really want to see people whose lives kind of suck, so they are rebelling to make it better for them or make change to the world.
[00:01:49] Rocky: I think it’s, think it’s really important that it’s, you don’t get too caught up in the like, ah, they’re making the world a better place. Cause it’s like, they’re not always, sometimes they are, they are low life scum, um, and they’re just doing crimes. Um, and sometimes they are like. They, maybe they’re trying to make the world a better place, but I think it’s a, I think a really important part of the cyberpunk, vibe is that actually it’s kind of ultimately futile.
Um, like, maybe you solve this crime that’s in front of you, but in, you know, in the long run the corps always win, the mega corps always
[00:02:25] Jordan: Yep. You can foil one of the agendas by a corp, but another one is gonna move in to scoop up that opportunity. The, the power vacuum will always be filled by existing entities.
[00:02:37] Rocky: And never by you, right?
[00:02:39] Jordan: Yeah, most critically, never by you. Like you don’t come out on top.
[00:02:44] Rocky: You’re always little guys.
[00:02:46] Jordan: relatively ahead if you succeed. But I think it also kind of captures a like an almost hyper violence aspect to it as well.
Where like, life is cheap. You’re, you’re not a grand hero. You don’t get three death saving throws, there is a strong chance that your character can just kaput and die, and that’s part of the appeal of it.
[00:03:08] Rocky: Yep. Humans are just meat. We’re disposable meat in trench coats and mirror shades.
[00:03:14] Jordan: I, uh, in Cyberpunk Edgerunners, there’s a fantastic line, I think Lucy says it to David, where she’s like, Cyberpunks aren’t defined by how they live, they’re defined by how they die.
[00:03:25] Rocky: Yes. Yeah, I love that.
[00:03:27] Jordan: Captures it real clean, real succinct.
There’s an element that I think has to be included in here and it’s always the struggle for humanity and whether that’s on like the personal scale where it’s how much of myself can I replace with augmentations and still be me or whether it’s the like how many people act in a group to dehumanize others. Like, where’s the threshold on the societal scale? Where’s the threshold on the individual scale?
[00:03:57] Rocky: So if you’re in a cyberpunk type game, What are you going to be disappointed if you don’t get? If, if all of this stuff is the vibe, like what kinds of things are you going to be disappointed if that’s not in the game?
[00:04:09] Jordan: If I don’t get to spit in the face of an authority,I’m gonna be real upset.
[00:04:16] Jordan: I want a direct confrontation with the bads.
[00:04:20] Rocky: Oh yeah. Perhaps loaded question. Who are the bads?
[00:04:24] Jordan: The corps. Anyone who is a capitalism.
[00:04:30] Rocky: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s like, it’s, it’s like the cops aren’t going to get you, but like corporate security will.
[00:04:35] Jordan: Yes, like, a vestigial limb
[00:04:39] Rocky: goons, the goons will get you.
[00:04:42] Jordan: They are literally rent a cops now, franchised out.
[00:04:46] Rocky: Everyone’s a mall cop.
[00:04:47] Jordan: Everyone’s Paul Blart.
[00:04:49] Rocky: I was gonna say, by this logic, is Paul Blart mall cop cyberpunk? Discuss.
[00:04:53] Jordan: I will not be elaborating and it is a sin to ask. So, confrontation with authority has to be one of them.
[00:05:01] Rocky: I think we’re up against impossible odds and, and that is going to make the eventual victory all the sweeter when, when it feels like the, defeat is all the more inevitable.
I have some, I have some like much more basic stuff that I would consider essential.
[00:05:20] Rocky: I think it has to be like in a city. Uh, I’m having, I’m having a real hard time visualizing what pastoral rural cyberpunk would look like.
[00:05:31] Jordan: If you were to do cyberpunk in the wilderness, It’s more like kind of a post apocalypse-y.
[00:05:36] Rocky: Exactly. Yeah,
[00:05:38] Jordan: Which is a different vibe.
[00:05:40] Rocky: It’s neon, it’s like concrete skyscrapers, it’s, everyone’s wearing like mirrored shades everyone’s wearing trench coats, it’s like, it’s probably raining a lot of the time.
[00:05:54] Jordan: Double denim also features highly, like, Patches on like a cut off jacket.
[00:06:00] Rocky: Yep. Absolutely. Um, so I think that, I think the aesthetic perhaps more than almost any other genre, I think the aesthetic is critical.
[00:06:12] Jordan: I think that ties right back to the punk aspect of it as well. Like, punk was very much the counterculture of like, Fuck you, I don’t do what you tell me, I dress the way I want. And that’s almost entirely made from the things that are unseemly in polite society. I’m intentionally a sore thumb.
[00:06:30] Rocky: The corps are this, this force for like uniformity and the, the punks are the, the people who are fighting fruitlessly for individuality and the, way they look is like a really big part of that, and the goons are all in suits and our heroes all have like spiked green hair,
[00:06:54] Jordan: It’s almost kind of like style is substance.
[00:06:56] Rocky: Yeah, yeah, I think so. getting the setting right, getting the like character descriptions right,
[00:07:03] Jordan: I think you really gotta let your players flourish in that space. Like, give, them the invitation to go nuts with their aesthetic,
[00:07:13] Rocky: The answer to whatever, like crazy crap they want to write on their character sheet. It should be yes. , because the joy of this setting comes from the, the wild sort of diversity of characters, but also the like amazing contrast between the characters and there’s a certain kind of faceless goon, um, and, you have to be as colourful as they are drab, and you have to be as, as human and like personalised as they are cogs in a machine.
[00:07:45] Jordan: That’s, that’s tight.
[00:07:47] Rocky: That’s the tension.
[00:07:48] Jordan: Yeah, we love that. Like, your, your players are defined as other by choice.
I think there’s gotta be like, there’s gotta be some sort of a challenge about losing humanity, or dehumanization. Like, it’s gotta be, something to do with artificial intelligence, or something to challenge, humanity on a big scale that one of the corps might be perpetrating.
Like, something that’s uniquely human.
[00:08:15] Rocky: I kind of went the other way, a very similar theme of like someone losing their humanity. Um, but I went much more zoomed in on what’s the kind of conflict. And I went, someone dies.
[00:08:31] Jordan: Oh yeah
[00:08:32] Rocky: I think for the like, for the, and they can be linked, but I think for the like inciting incident, they’re like, why are you on this adventure? What are you, what are you setting out to do? As a like, revenge story, or a crime solving story, or a, like, they die bringing you the lead for a heist, like…
[00:08:53] Jordan: I think it also in, in some ways it really serves, uh, the, like, life is cheap, kind of a vibe. ’cause that person dies and the only person that cares is the main character.
[00:09:05] Jordan: Like the system goes on, they, it doesn’t give a shit. It, it carries on the way it was before. Uh, another cog will fill that, that gap in the machine.
[00:09:14] Rocky: I think, I Together pretty nicely.
I would feel cheated if there were not some kind of interaction with cyberspace.
[00:09:23] Jordan: Oh yeah, sure. Sorry, I definitely took that for granted.
[00:09:27] Rocky: No, I mean, but that’s the point, right? As it’s the, that’s, that’s kind of why we’re doing this. It’s like, what are the things that you would take for granted that it’s worth going through and actually laying out?
It’s like, yeah, it does have to take place in a city like concrete canyons and, and neon signs. Yes, there also has to be, when we’re talking setting, there has to be an equivalent cyberscape.
[00:09:47] Jordan: The grid.
[00:09:49] Rocky: Yeah, there’s gotta be a grid, there’s gotta be a s a metaverse. Bluh. Heh heh heh.
[00:09:55] Jordan: Metaverse more fun before Meta
[00:09:58] Rocky: I know! I hate that, um, Zuckerberg has ruined metaverse for us, but it is what it is. Heh
[00:10:04] Jordan: Uh, one thing that I find an amusing contrast to the real world. None of the tech is easily interoperable. There are no universal standards in this future. Uh, we don’t have the conglomerates that are like, Alright, we’ve got a symposium and we’re gonna agree. USBC is the standard.
[00:10:24] Rocky: I Mean, the tech is as heterogeneous as the people, right? Like,
[00:10:28] Rocky: everyone’s got their own cyber deck the same way everyone has their own, you know, hair color and,
[00:10:34] Jordan: It is another representation of style. And like, for some reason, it’s all customizable. No one’s got an iPhone. Everytone’s got iike a hacked together open source thing that they’ve put together with intent.
Uh, for context, dear listener, uh, I’m a systems engineer by education and god damn do I love interoperable systems. Modular things that fit together to form a greater whole. Mmm. Chef’s kiss.
[00:11:07] Rocky: Oh, see, I think that, I think that is some extent. More the case in cyberpunk because you can just like buy an upgrade and plug it into your deck, right? Which is actually much harder to do on your phone
I can go to like a street dealer and buy like some, modded plugs or something and just like patch them into my rig And they’ll just work Uh, whereas Yeah, that’s not really how iPhone accessories work.
[00:11:38] Jordan: You’ve just brought up a real important story element for me. And that is, Black Market, I’m talking like full trench coat, Software Dealer. Because software is like, bespoke written stuff, you know, it’s not like, ah, here’s your Here’s your license for the cloud suite of software that you don’t own. No, it’s like you get this disk And if you’re caught with it, oh, you’re going down real it’s super illegal like more so than regular illegal
[00:12:07] Rocky: Copyright law is the only law remaining in in the land,
[00:12:13] Jordan: future where tech has gone wild But copyright law remains.
[00:12:21] Rocky: So let’s talk structure. What kind of story are we telling. And how do we lay that out in a way that it is, both easy for us to prep as game masters, but also satisfying for players to progress through as characters in the world. What’s like, what is the shape of the story?
[00:12:45] Jordan: I mean, you brought this up before, so is the first point, the first node on our story, somebody dying?
In which case, we begin, in character creation, with everyone having a connection to this hook. To this person. This, this cyberpunk, if you will.
[00:13:06] Rocky: I will.
[00:13:07] Jordan: they have to have some connection to either the, like, emotional stakes of this person, or the professional conduct of this person. This person died because they recovered the plants from the Death Star equivalent. He was your best friend in school, and now you gotta find out what went wrong and avenge them.
[00:13:26] Rocky: Yeah, I’d have them start around a dead body. Cause I think Cyberpunk stories are basically crime stories. Either doing an investigate of a crime, with or without the support of the law, or we are doing a crime, right?
I think those are your two kind of structures that you can lean into, do crime or solve crime.
You are either running a mystery or you are running a heist.
[00:13:52] Jordan: Yes. Like, heist I think is a real, real touch point for this genre, right? Like, the get into the corp. Do a thing, do a crime, and get out,
[00:14:07] Jordan: Solving the mystery, I think, is also, uh, get into the corps, like, physical site, and find the clues
[00:14:14] Rocky: Yeah. They’ve got the evidence, right? Like eIther way it’s a, it’s a penetration. Um, exercise, I was going to say penetration test, but it’s not a test because it’s the real deal. But yeah, I think, I think that gives you the structure, for the story, we’re starting around a dead body, but whatever we find there in our first round of sort of investigations has to lead us to corporate headquarters , and, from scene one on, it has to be very clear that we are doing a heist.
There has to be something that we need to get. Whether that’s information, whether that’s technology, whether that’s cash, there’s something we want to get, the corp has it.
[00:14:59] Jordan: Cash is a weak motivator in this scenario. Like, unless you’re in debt to, like, the loan shark, or you have missed, like, several payments on your cyberware, or something.
[00:15:09] Rocky: And it’s like, well, look, I can either, you know, take all my, uh, hardware back, um, which would be real unfortunate for you because it’s replaced several of your, you know, essential organs. So like, that’d suck for you.
We don’t keep them in storage
Like, yeah, those went in a, those went in a dumpster.
We don’t, we don’t, keep those, or. You can do this job for me. So I think narratively, that’s the playbook we’re pulling from is, It’s a heist movie in mirror shades.
[00:15:40] Jordan: Mirror shades. God, we love them so much.
[00:15:43] Rocky: It’s, it’s, it’s a heist movie in mirror shades and a leather trench coat, like, with, with spiked green hair.
But it is, but like, under, underneath all of that, you peel all that away, and it’s just, George Clooney and Brad Pitt,
[00:15:58] Jordan: having sweet bants. So, structurally then, I think there’s kind of a, a significant start box and finish box, right? Like, this is a, pretty much a three act structure actually, I think is a better way of thinking of it. Where act one is a gathering information phase. You’ve got a corps. It has a couple of vectors, which are leads to point outwards to other bits of the story that you can explore.
And those leads are generating the way that you get in, the method of entry, how to subvert the outer perimeter of security.
And that first act, like, it’s purpose is to showcase the, the nitty gritty of the world that you’re in. You’re meeting the underworld people, you’re buying the software from your scumbag dealer. You know, you’re, you’re doing the illegal street things on the street. And then, at the end of that, you’re exiting the street, and now you’re in Corpo World.
[00:16:56] Rocky: Yeah, it’s almost like act one is, act one is everyone gears up. Act two, you’re like at the front door or the back door, like whichever door you choose to go through,
[00:17:06] Jordan: Mm hmm. Or the window.
[00:17:09] Jordan: Or the roof. But yeah, you’re, you’re gearing up and I think that’s also, that first bit is the way that you show your characters with their specific skills and connections. So like, you’re techie is going down and like, hacking outer perimeter defenses or something like that. . ,your socialite is schmoozing in with like a fake identity to get past the lobby . You’re all leaning on your underworld contacts and showcasing everyone’s different strengths.
[00:17:38] Rocky: Yep. So, we all get some scenes to prepare. I would say we probably want the bulk of the game. I, I’d go like a one third, two thirds sort of split. We sort of spend the first third gearing up and then I think the second two thirds we are like running.
[00:17:56] Jordan: Yeah, 100%. Like, this Gather Intel phase is, like, mostly world building.
[00:18:02] Rocky: it’s flavor.
[00:18:03] Jordan: Yeah, you’re building flavor and you’re prepping the team, but really the meat and bones of this adventure is inside Corp World.
[00:18:12] Rocky: So once we’re inside corpo world, what does that look like? How do you structure a fun heist challenge without having to actually do like a full corporate security plan? Um, like, cause that’s the. That’s the, massively over preparing version of this, is to, like, war game a real corporate break in and have all the, like, floor plans and have all the, vault security systems, detailed like at a certain point, you are just pen testing for real, which is, it’s probably its own kind of fun, um, but it’s not a role playing game. So like, how do you abstract the actual heist ? What, encounters, I guess, in quote marks, do you prepare inside that corporate box?
[00:19:07] Jordan: So, I would probably grab a floor plan And I would scrub off all of the details of it, just so I have kind of a layout of rooms to go by.
But not whatever their functions are. I don’t care about that. I’ll invent that on the fly.
It’s just a containerized geography that I can dump content into as we need it.
I’d do a real cursory glance at like, what are the types of security elements that would exist in this world?
I think one of the big failings that you could fall into here is having a pretty static world. , in which case it kind of becomes like a 5e dungeon, which is not the type of fiction we’re trying to represent here.
We actually don’t care about the nitty gritty going from room to room and crawling your way through. You just want to be able to encounter obstacles and give your players options to shine there. So, if the action’s starting to lag, we have like, a security patrol is coming by. And depending on how, good they are or how you want to play it, it could be, a, you hear the footsteps coming or you hear the banter of the security guards, it gives you a moment to set up and do something or hide or, pretend to look like an employee. Or, do a combat quietly. And I think that’s, uh, another element on here is that you have to build into the fiction a way that they could do a combat without the entire building coming down on them. Because in heist fiction, the first blow doesn’t signal an army being raised.
There has to be a mechanism for them to fumble the ball and get back up and keep playing without it suddenly becoming a, great, now you have to kill 8, 000 people who are all security guards and well armed.
[00:20:52] Rocky: but I think Ideally that comes at a, uh, an expenditure of resources. That’s where a lot of the tension is gonna come from, at the start of the heist, you have plenty of resources, uh, and plenty of time and the, threat level is low. Um, and by the end, All of those should be ratcheted up, like you need to be running on empty, skin of your teeth, guards are behind you, ice is closing in, like, that’s where the tension comes from is, that alarm level getting raised and your resources getting depleted as the game
[00:21:29] Jordan: Yep. We’ve got a full inversion of those
[00:21:31] Rocky: Yeah, um,
[00:21:33] Jordan: I think, uh, one of the ways that you could really play into that is gear up the players with a bunch of one shot items.
So, like, it’s the gas grenade that will knock out anyone and, like, you can put it in the ventilation duct or something like that.
[00:21:48] Rocky: And I think that’s where you start to link in phase one, which is your prep. For this to be satisfying, whatever single use resources you’re deploying during the heist are the ones that you cultivated in the first part of the game. So like, you spend your sort of setup buying illegal software from your, street dealer guy, then that’s what you’re taking into the heist with you.
[00:22:10] Jordan: Yes, exactly. There’s a little bit of an element on the players to play to their strengths But I’m going to give them those opportunities. I will give them the affordance to, uh, insert the thing that they’ve brought along to solve that.
I think probably one of the most frustrating things as a player is when you get to the end of a session and you’re like, Well, all these things I prepared for actually there was no contingency where I needed that.
[00:22:31] Rocky: It’s a, a genre that rewards people being incredibly diverse and incredibly out there and very divergent, right?
Like. You want to give them an opportunity for whatever their shtick is to shine. You know, if they’re not getting a chance to use their special skill, then why did you bother having them create it?
[00:22:53] Jordan: Yeah. Why did you let them be diverse? Unless they could play with their toys.
[00:22:58] Rocky: Every gun is Chekhov’s gun, right? Like if it’s, if it’s not in there, then it’s just irrelevant set dressing. If it, if it never comes up, then it was, it was, pointless putting it in.
[00:23:09] Jordan: At worst, it’s an, uh, sticking point, because your player couldn’t pull the trigger of that gun.
[00:23:14] Rocky: Exactly. And so if you think about this from like a user experience-y sort of perspective in, in creating. particular kinds of characters. The players are telling you what they want to do. And then the onus is on you as a GM, as the person who is facilitating the experience to look at that and then give them what they want
[00:23:38] Jordan: I’ve seen this summarized really cleanly with the character sheet as a wish list.
[00:23:43] Rocky: Yes, exactly right. And It’s important not to confuse giving them what they want with like solving the problem for them but it is fulfilling the options that they’ve given themselves in designing their character. Your job as the GM is to pick up on that and like, run with it
[00:24:00] Jordan: I think, uh, the best example that I’ve seen of this as like, uh, invitation to the GM to play this game as well. is on the GM screen for Spire, The City Must Fall. There’s a section, just a little bit, that says if this is your character at the table, then give them this obstacle in the fiction. So an example would be like, if you have an Azerite priest, who’s like a priest of commerce, give them someone to dupe.
If there’s like the mechanic in your cyberpunk world, the escape route might be the garage and they’re going to have to like hot wire of vehicle or something like that to use their skill and make them the hero of the moment.
[00:24:41] Rocky: I think it’s kind of interesting that what we’ve landed on is, is essentially, we’ve got a heist, we’ve got a prep phase, and your job as the DM is to like lay down an interesting gauntlet for the players to run.
[00:24:54] Jordan: Yes, like I think that’s a great way of thinking about it. It’s like obstacle after obstacle is going to present themselves and I think the prep that I would do here is to build myself a fun little library of specific obstacles just to give myself the ability to improvise at the table with it.
[00:25:14] Rocky: Yeah, and I think that’s, if you are going to do some prep, that is right at the intersection of like fun prep to do, but also useful prep to do because you get to go out and research like weird vehicles and interesting security systems and like design some cool cyber traps and honestly I would go blatantly steal uh ice designs from the netrunner card game
[00:25:41] Jordan: Oh yeah, fantastic research opportunity there.
Can I say, one of the funnest things that I’ve learned about penetration testers. I’m not a penetration tester, I’ve done quite a bit of, uh, research into it for the sake of education.
And the most fun one I’ve seen is most automatic doors run off like a temperature sensor kind of a thing.
[00:26:01] Jordan: so if you have a door that has that sensor on only the interior side and you’re on the outside, they bring like a can of compressed air with the long nozzle. And just pop it through the gap in the door and just squirt it in front of the sensor and the sensor will open. It’s like, super simple, low tech solution to a high tech security device.
So yeah, I might throw down like, doors with different mechanisms on them. Like, maybe there’s a terminal you could hack, maybe there’s a sensor that, if the players could identify that, there’s just a clever way around it.
[00:26:36] Rocky: That’s a point where the characters don’t necessarily, the players don’t necessarily need to know, but the characters do.
[00:26:41] Jordan: You don’t need your players to be elite hackers, you just need them to have seen the movie Hackers.
[00:26:49] Rocky: Yeah, they don’t need to understand what they’re doing, they’ve just got to be able to spout plausible nonsense and you can, feed them loaded prompts about how they might respond to a problem.
And the specific example I’m thinking of here is like, real world hacking doesn’t work like this, but in cyberpunk, everything is a physical metaphor. So if they. against a firewall. It is a literal wall of fire. And like, maybe they have some code that is water, or maybe there’s some kind of like virtual version of a sprinkler system that they can turn on, like whatever they want to do in, in cyberspace, it doesn’t have to be like, well, I, you know, I, I want to do a, um, a man in the middle attack or a denial of service.
It’s like, no, there’s a firewall and the firewall is literally fire. Like how-
[00:27:47] Jordan: there is a sentry demon, and it is a demon, but it glitches and glows
[00:27:52] Rocky: You as a hacker, you hack things. So you have a sword.
[00:27:56] Jordan: You have two katanas.
[00:27:58] Rocky: katanas because you’re the hero and the protagonist.
[00:28:02] Jordan: We’ll call him hero protagonist. Yes.
[00:28:08] Rocky: that hacking world is kind of metaphorical. And I think that is a lesson to take into the rest of the game. Which is that things kind of work the way you want them to. Or, or fail to work the way that you want them to, because failure always has to be an option, not everything has to work, but like, if you want to,
[00:28:29] Jordan: intended use is the, the mechanism that you think they are used for is how you would use
that. Like, everything’s easy to grok.
[00:28:38] Rocky: yeah, So If you follow the classic kind of archetypes with someone is the net runner, how do you make it so that everyone can participate when the runner is doing their thing? Um, and how do you make it so that the runner gets to participate when everyone else is doing their thing?
Because in a lot of ways if they’re like up in cyberspace and you’re down on the ground like You’re kind of playing different games So, how do you make sure that the runner and the rest of the party are playing the same game?
[00:29:07] Jordan: I think you’ve gotta make those two layers bleed. So there’s gotta be, like, automated sentry turrets that could be deactivated by the runner but to do it, they have to be close to that segment of the network.
[00:29:21] Rocky: So whatever, setting you decide to run in, you just have to make it a given, I guess that no, the, the hacker has to come with to like locally access the network.
[00:29:33] Jordan: They’re coming for the LAN party.
[00:29:35] Rocky: yeah, I’m like less guy in the van and more R2 D2. Right? Like.
[00:29:39] Jordan: Yes! ha ha
[00:29:40] Rocky: he’s gotta pop out his little thing and like plug it into whatever door
[00:29:44] Jordan: Ha ha, doot doot doot doot doot! Ha ha, the only example of a universal standard in the Star Wars universe. R2D2’s multi tool.
Alright, so, we’ve got a library of different events or different obstacles. Some of them are barriers, some of them are NPCs, uh, I would probably prep a bunch of NPCs that would be like employees of different grade that you might stumble upon, like I’m gonna draw from my actual life here. A bunch of executives in a meeting room with a digital whiteboard and the word adaptagility is on it and they’ve circled it several times.
[00:30:23] Rocky: And you walk in and they’re just, they’re clearly in the middle of a, like, an argument and they haven’t noticed that you’ve opened the door. And it’s like, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna like shoot up the room? Are you just gonna like close the door and walk away? Like, there’s so many opportunities for, uh, The Office esque, Utopia esque, like,
[00:30:42] Jordan: a cathartic outlet from real life. I’d have, like, maybe some, like, maintenance people, uh, security of maybe differing levels where it’s, like, the base level guy who’s just roaming around versus the specialist team that responds to incidents. Maybe, like, someone on a visit or a rival corporation liaison
[00:31:06] Rocky: The ultimate version of that is you run into, Um, someone who you thought was on your side and they’re on the inside and they, they’ve like taken a paycheck to work for the bad guys, right. Or, or taken a blackmail. . But it’s, it’s the like, no, you don’t understand. Like My work here can make a real difference. It’s like, no, I can’t believe you sold out to the man. , maybe it’s even someone who you encountered in the first half of the game. Right. And
[00:31:34] Jordan: I was thinking.
And it might not even be like, I’m I’m doing this for the greater good. It might be the money was just too good, man.
[00:31:43] Rocky: the other one I would really love to throw in here is. another team of,,
hackers or whatever also doing a different heist.
[00:31:52] Jordan: You got another team of punks who have their own agenda, and it might fuck with
I love that, and like, there’s so many fun opportunities to be like, Oh okay, we can just throw them under the bus and scapegoat them, get the attention to be drawn to them.
Or it might be like, a rivalry thing, where you’re like, Oh no, this has to be attributed to us.
We can’t let them steal the credit.
[00:32:15] Rocky: don’t have to prep anything because it’s like whatever the players think the other group is going to do, they don’t do it. Right. It’s like, if you think they’re going to betray you, then they don’t. And then if you decide to betray them, then they don’t betray you.
[00:32:33] Jordan: Are you just prisoners dilemmaring the players right
[00:32:36] Rocky: Yes. Whatever choice they make is wrong.
[00:32:40] Jordan: Oh, I believe this is called punking.
[00:32:42] Rocky: Cyberpunking.
[00:32:43] Jordan: Okay, we’ve got a pretty good library of activities that you could throw at your players that I think you, you pull them out, uh, through whatever mechanism you want based on how the story is going. We love cards. God, we love cards so much. .
This is my toolkit. You’re, dishing it out based on the fiction that’s happening.
[00:33:03] Rocky: What is going to hit that flow state point of like challenging but achievable for where the players are at this point in the game? What is going to
[00:33:15] Jordan: what’s going to rotate the spotlight
[00:33:16] Rocky: going to rotate the spotlight to a new player? Like, who hasn’t had a go yet? And how can I sort of. to prime them to have a go.
Um, we know we want the tension to be going up through the whole heist. Like, what can I, what can I slap down that’s gonna raise the stakes? Is that putting more things down? Is it putting more powerful things down?
What resources have they got, and how can I deplete them?
And so your, game as a GM, and this is, one of my favourite ways to think about this, but it’s like, your game as a GM is to make sure that the players win, but only by the skin of their teeth. Or If they lose, it’s by the skin of their teeth, right? Cause that’s just as satisfying. But like that’s the game that you’re playing.
You’re not working in universe with lore and making sure that , the setting is, you know, internally consistent. The game that you are playing is watching everyone’s stress levels. if they get too high, you got to like moderate them. If they’re too low, you got to bring them up. But like you are. You are trying to deplete every resource at that table
[00:34:23] Rocky: so that when they reach their goal they are running
completely empty,, and are being chased by things and, like, they’ve lost some limbs. I wouldn’t want anyone to not be able to participate, but I think you can have some characters in a bad way.
And I honestly, if you’re doing a one shot, I don’t feel bad about killing someone on the final approach. Like if you die in the last 15 minutes of the session, you know, if you die, getting to the climax, that’s mint.
[00:34:58] Jordan: toot sweet. We love that. That’s a full character arc in a session. The team narrowly wins, so good. When the team narrowly loses, and you kind of get that, like, what was it all for kind of a vibe, also fantastic. Like, either way, it’s an emotional high.
Like, the, the absolute value of emotion is high.
[00:35:22] Jordan: Whether it’s a positive or negative emotion depends on how the, the final encounter goes.
[00:35:27] Rocky: I think in, in Cyberpunk, because it is a dystopian future, and because life is cheap, that’s kind of one of the themes we talked about, um, and because in a lot of these settings, death isn’t permanent, um, I think Cyberpunk somewhat uniquely gives you permission to put player characters lives on the line, like, quote unquote, for realsies I think permadeath can be on the table and I don’t think a lot of genres can get away with that. ,
[00:35:57] Jordan: I absolutely think it should be on the table.
[00:36:00] Rocky: whatever this final approach is, I would be preparing, for the eventuality or even actively working towards the eventuality that one or more of the characters is not going to make it out alive.
Maybe it even, like actively requires sacrifice, right? Like, it’s like someone has to plug the cables together and get electrocuted. Like someone has to stay
[00:36:25] Jordan: Oh no, it’s better than that. It’s, they have to, they have to hold the two battery terminals themselves and they are the cable. That’s what we love.
Anytime there’s an opportunity to introduce a plot point for a heroic sacrifice, do that. And maybe the players don’t take up on it?
Maybe it’s not, like, hard coded required to do that, but always give them the opportunity. Because if somebody volunteers their character to die , it’s because they wanted it, and they wanted to ride that character all the way to the
[00:36:55] Rocky: Yeah. So it’s not about setting out to kill the characters. It’s about. Offering them opportunities to like go
[00:37:02] Jordan: Glorious death.
[00:37:05] Jordan: So, we’ve made it to, like, the crux of it, right? Our, significant portion of the game is done, and now we’re at the climax scene where resources are running real low, they’re a bit frayed, the alert level is high the ratchets have gone up and they’re not coming down, and they’ve made it to The facility, the network hub, where the prototype robot is, whatever it is that’s happening there, I actually think this is a relatively short scene in the whole thing. Like, if we’re playing for like a 3 hour session, this is probably about 15 20 minutes.
Honestly, I think not even particularly challenging.
[00:37:45] Jordan: The challenge was getting here.
Is the bit where the characters make big moves and you go with it. And if, if the vibe’s right, you play the big counter move that gives them that opportunity to shine one last time.
And then comes the X Fill, like, they’ve done the thing, how are they gonna get out of there? . So, I might even have, like, a couple options for this, like, the opportunity to smash a window and base jump, or get in the elevator and it drops you down to the garage where all the, like security vehicles are.
Like, I’m, I’m very anything goes at this point. They’ve already made that emotional high. Now we want to get to the denouement as quick as possible.
[00:38:27] Rocky: I think the real tension in this bit comes from, does everybody make it out not due to any I guess, failed roles, in quote marks, in this section, but due to consequences from earlier.
[00:38:44] Jordan: Yeah. Does the immediate pass catch up with you?
[00:38:47] Rocky: it’s like, if you lost a leg in an earlier scene, maybe you don’t make it out and get captured.
this is the point where. It’s maybe most apt to drop consequences of the player’s actions. Like, having achieved their goal, like, now it’s time for consequences. The consequences come on the way out.
[00:39:04] Jordan: we’ve kind of described a structure here, right?, Act 1 is, the players get to explore their characters and their world. Meet their underworld friends and their like, punky, punky compatriots. Prep for the thing.
And then we come back together when we launch the, heist where we’re doing the thing in the venue. So I find an encounter that allows them to play those cards that they have, like pull their levers on their character sheet. And then we get to the big climax y bit where they get in, do the cool thing. Achieve the revenge, burn down the prototype, break the machine.
And then, denouement straight away. We’re, we’re out of there, like, we’ve done the exfil, we get to debrief the players. Uh, and talk about how the world has changed, and maybe drop some forward sizzle for what comes
[00:39:58] Rocky: Yeah, so there’s a bit that I really like in the Tales from the Loop RPG where you solve the mystery in the final scene,, and then everyone gets one scene and then the game ends, right? So like you go around the table and it’s like, what are you doing now?
What are you doing now? And they’re like, that’s it. It cuts straight to the like, two weeks later montage and then the, the game ends, but everyone gets like one thing. And I think that would be a great fit for this is like, how have you all gone back to your divergent lives two weeks later, or if you didn’t make it out alive, like what does that mean for the other people in your.
[00:40:38] Jordan: that you would be
[00:40:39] Rocky: who is swearing revenge? Who is planning a rescue mission? Like, what does that look like?
[00:40:45] Jordan: Who has the sad scene where they just look over at the empty chair where you used to sit?
Like, like, let’s tug some heartstrings right now, let’s tie these characters intrinsically to their world and their absence will be felt. Not by the system, but by the people that they care about.
[00:41:03] Rocky: Strong structure. How are we going to run it at the table? Let’s, talk rules. Let’s talk
[00:41:18] Jordan: We’re gonna use Forged in the Dark for show. there’s There’s already a couple of hacks out there for Forge in the Dark to turn into cyberpunk. I haven’t explored all of them, the one that I have, uh, dipped my toes into is Hack the Planet, which is just named so tightly. But, most importantly, the levers that you can pull here tie really well to a blade structure.
You’ve got an opening gather intelligence phase, where you, can just have your characters talking to the people on their sheet that they have. Uh, finding out information about the scenario quite easily. Um, I actually would modify one thing though. I wouldn’t use the, uh, what, what is commonly known as the quantum backpack of blades.
Where they choose their load at the start of the mission. And then just have whatever resource they have on hand. I would actually forego that in this case. And say that, for the sake of cyberpunk fiction, they should be acquiring things early. Like, the gather intel phase is the gear up phase as well.
And then we get to the engagement role, where they choose how they’re approaching it. And bingo bango, we’re in the thick of a heist. And Blades really supports this structure of, I’m just gonna throw obstacles at them as the narrative requires.
[00:42:38] Rocky: I really love
the, and I, I’m wondering if this is what you were about to say anyway. Um, I think the idea of the clocks that tick
[00:42:46] Jordan: you beat me to it!
[00:42:47] Rocky: yeah, really, really matches the, ratcheting up the tension,
[00:42:53] Jordan: If I was going to run this in Blades, with like a little bit of prep beforehand, I would have in mind what sort of clocks are fun and relevant. So like, if I’ve got a team that’s mostly around that cyberspace element, I’m going to have some clocks in there that represent, like, the antivirus or the trace coming for you.
And then have, like, a vague idea in mind of what consequences might trigger when that clock fills up. If it’s going to be more meatspace or if they’re raiding, like, the Bioroid facility, then it’s Killbot 9000 or something that’s going to come, like, there’s physical space triggers that can tick that clock.
[00:43:31] Jordan: couple of those in my
[00:43:32] Rocky: it’s the like facilities
[00:43:36] Rocky: when, when the facility is on like high alert, everything’s going to be harder. Um,
[00:43:43] Jordan: it facilitates that super well and super cleanly. And then finally, the action skills, uh, the action ratings of all the different playbooks, I think work really great as evocative names that you can assign to like kind of broad parts of cyberpunk fiction without having to worry about the nitty gritty.
You don’t have to worry about that. I actually don’t know different types of cyber attacks. I, I don’t really know how to hack. No, you have a skill called hack. That’s, that’s what you do. You verb the obstacle. Let’s go.
[00:44:17] Rocky: verb the nouns.,
[00:44:18] Jordan: We’re verbing nouns all the way down. And it’s just so well supported in this fiction.
[00:44:24] Rocky: One thing I haven’t ever done is read any of the like the Android, Netrunner, RPG, or the, like I’ve not read any of those.
[00:44:34] Jordan: I’ve not actually played Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk Red, which are the two most recent ones in that series, I’ve listened to a bunch of actual plays that were played in Cyberpunk 2020, and it does do a pretty good job of evoking that feel. But I’m not sure if that’s the mechanics, or just the setting.
[00:44:54] Rocky: In terms of things I would steal to, kind of tie into the vibe, Liminal Horror has a really good way of using a map that is in the middle of the table, um, and in a lot of cases it is a map of a, an unnamed facility and it’s got like corridors and rooms and You, the DM, or the GM, tell the players what’s in there, but it’s their job to kind of fill out the map.
So I would absolutely, nick the map, from that. I would have it be one player’s job to secure a map. And have that like out in the middle of the table for the players to fill in. and also look at some of the other stuff from that setting and system as well, where like, every time you traverse a room, whether or not you’ve been through it before, there is a risk of, re encountering something. , so like, backtracking has costs.
I think the other thing that I would be doing at the table is, I would have a very carefully curated playlist, and be like changing up the music to kind of match.
I would also be asking each player to give their character a theme song. Um, which sounds lame, but I had a, a DM do it
[00:46:06] Jordan: at all.
[00:46:07] Rocky: Whenever we were doing something particularly good he would play our character’s theme song. ,
[00:46:12] Jordan: I love that.
[00:46:13] Rocky: and so if you’re proactively spotlighting players and making sure that everyone gets a moment to shine. having the theme songs on file is a really good way to do that.
That is probably the one bit of prep I would ask the players to do beforehand, or if you have a more like, I guess, artistically motivated group, like think really hard about the visual description of your character.
But I think. Everyone can pick a song from a playlist, whereas not everyone is going to be great at, like, finding visual
imagery. Um, but yeah, for a genre that’s all about the vibes, I think giving the players some input on what gets played is, uh, could be really, really cool.
[00:46:55] Jordan: I do think that, uh, if you’re asking players to prep, choosing a song is just about the limit of what I would expect almost all of my players to put out for me.
[00:47:07] Rocky: The upper limit or the lower limit?
[00:47:09] Jordan: The upper limit.
[00:47:10] Rocky: Oh man.
[00:47:11] Jordan: So if you can get them to bring one song, you’ve won.
[00:47:14] Rocky: Yeah, and like they bring one song and then they’re gonna want to hear it played. Their job as players is to try and incite a set of circumstances where the GM will want to play it and your job as GM is to try and like provide a situation where a player can step up so that it gets played like I think it really neatly illustrates that idea that just because you’re putting down obstacles in front of them actually doesn’t make you their adversary you are setting them up for
[00:47:47] Rocky: not for failure. Um, and so like if everyone is working towards getting the theme song played, I think that’s actually, but also metaphorically how you should approach running just RPGs in general, right? Like,
[00:48:04] Jordan: No, I think that’s it. Like, when you’re preparing for the players, you are setting up adversarial situations. When you are playing at the table with the players, you are setting them up to shine.
[00:48:19] Jordan: You’re, you’re not trying to slap the ball out of their hands. You’re trying to lift them up from below so they can shoot
[00:48:25] Rocky: yeah. And that’s the, that’s the tricky double think involved with, with DMing. And I think one of the reasons we started doing this or at least having this kind of conversation is like So many people are on the in universe level where like yes You’re playing as the monsters and you’re running the monsters and so that like naturally puts you in this adversarial headspace And it’s like actually you need to be working up here where you’re not like, yes, you’re running The character’s enemies, but your job as the GM is to make the players have a good time.
And that is actually a different set of goals and has different design considerations to living in universe and like running the monsters quote unquote realistically. Yeah,
[00:49:12] Jordan: see so many, like, advice columns about how to simulate the world more. When simulating a big old entity like an entire fantasy universe in your head, A. Burns you out pretty hard when you’re preparing for all these eventualities to be. Internally consistent, sometimes with a non consistent rule set.
But B, it really sets you up to think in the wrong mindset about how to facilitate a good game session. Because at the end of the day, if it’s not set at the table, it doesn’t exist. And there’s so many things you can do when you’re simulating a world and being an adversarial GM, that really don’t result in any meaningful change to the story that you’re bringing about and can kind of truncate your fun and your players enjoyment.
Uh, and then we have that final question. If you were to run this in 5e, how would you?
[00:50:04] Rocky: I’m going to tell you what I would do if I was going to try and run a cyberpunk style, uh, game in 5e, and that is I would run acquisitions incorporated.
So Acquisitions Incorporated is, if you are not familiar with it, is based off a Penny Arcade campaign where they are franchisees of a, fantasy megacorp, and in addition to
[00:50:30] Jordan: All the mundane elements of corporate office work,
[00:50:35] Jordan: smushed into a fantasy shell.
[00:50:37] Rocky: addition to, say, being the, the bard or the fighter, you are also like documents though, who like manages all the, the contracts,
which are like magical contracts.
so if I were to, if I was going to do cyberpunk in. D& D 5e, I’d be like, you are on the grimy streets of Waterdeep, um, and it is raining and there are black market dudes in trench coats who will sell you security busting scrolls and your job is to
[00:51:10] Jordan: There’s a bunch of magic addicts in the gutter.
[00:51:13] Rocky: Yeah, and you really bring those like those Aking style roles to the fore and, for this game, it’s like you are not really playing as a warlock at all, you are playing as the horde’s person who controls the bag of holding that is linked to central, and like, how are you using that to, um, get into this, central office that is linked in with all of those magitech systems that that supplement introduces. So that’s how I would do it. If I, if I had to run it in 5e, I would run cyberpunk ac inc. And actually I think that could be quite fun.
I think the actual last question is one that I completely made up but that I really like as a finisher and it’s, uh, would you run this?
[00:52:01] Jordan: I would 100 percent run this. I would have so much fun running this. Would you?
[00:52:05] Rocky: I would also, yes, I wonder if we will ever answer no to that question.
[00:52:14] Jordan: Especially after, like, a bunch of time talking about the fun bits. I would
[00:52:23] Rocky: No, I would, I would run this, um, I would probably run it as a one shot rather than a campaign. Um, and I
I would probably find players who are more familiar with the genre, maybe even like, pair it with a movie night or something, I think that could be a really fun way to do it.
[00:52:50] Jordan: to do that. Also, I just really enjoy this genre, so like there’s no downside to any of these bits. I’m not expending any resources,
[00:52:57] Rocky: Yeah, it all, it all lives in my head rent free anyway, so like, might as well.
[00:53:01] Jordan: So yes, let’s run this.
[00:53:03] Rocky: Yeah, let’s do it. With all of our free time.
All right, should we, should we wrap this bad boy up?
[00:53:11] Jordan: Yeah, I think we just solved Roleplaying.
This has been Playtonics you can find us on the internet at playtonics. net. That’s P L A Y T O N I C S dot N E T, there is a link in the show notes if you want to check that out it is where you will find the podcast, but also, uh, other things as well. Uh, once we decide
Chuck us a bookmark Chuck us a subscribe in your podcast app of choice. And if you have a friend who you think would also enjoy listening to this show, um, maybe they’re another player at your table. Maybe they’re your game master and you want them to start doing some of this stuff, we don’t judge, uh, but one of the best ways you can help
[00:54:03] Jordan: no, we judge,
[00:54:04] Rocky: You judge.
[00:54:06] Jordan: provide opportunities to
[00:54:08] Rocky: for improvement! Uh,
What I’m trying to say is recommend the show to a friend And get them to give it a listen too. Maybe that will help them get on board with you running something a little bit different that is not D& D.
We want this show to be your gateway drug. Uh, so, Give away
those first hits for free. Ha All right.
[00:54:34] Jordan: Alright, goodbye! We did
[00:54:39] Rocky: did it. Um, I’m going
[00:54:41] Jordan: That was, we spoke a lot. That was a shitload of
[00:54:44] Rocky: yeah, we’re gonna, that’s going to be a fun one to edit.
