Cyberpunk 2020 -RPG Review 2.0

First session I played we tried kicking in the door to a room (note the DM told us later we didn't have to do combat lol) dude rolled a fumble sprained his leg. Then I shot the dude behind the door and we easially cleared out the thugs. WELL the look out we thought had nothing to do wound up alerting some corpo mercs (were mentioned by our Fixer's contact but we thought they were a red hearing) In comes in 3 heavilly armored dudes and the heavy we couldn't even pen lol so me and another guy died and eventually a long melee happened between that heave and the survivors lol, we wound up retconning that session lol

We converted CP2020 over to Savage Worlds. Netrunning is done real time in Augmented Reality. It takes the same number of rolls as combat, and can be used in combat as well - hack the car and run someone over with it, hack their smartgun and disable it, hack their brain and fry it. We love it!

It's completely off-topic, but I'm kinda curious if they are gonna change the technical levels' timeframe in GURPS 5e or if the real-life technical level will be 9 since 2026. I mean... With what these levels mean and how they are defined, I believe the latter is more accurate. (I don't play GURPS and don't want to, but I have read the 4e core book and I use some concepts from it elsewhere, including TL.)

Because im curious, and i know this review and video are old, but I really want to look into that Pulp Era Unlimited book. Anyone (or maybe Seth) know where I could get it?

Your video is definitely what I was looking for. I'm interested in the lore and the background of this franchise, the gameplay, how it differs or relates to 2077, and I also love the art, it's very charming. The style and feel of the advanced, yet dated tech is also very appealing to me.

Kudos*Sudoku

Im actually here because of 2077, because it gives away a pdf for 2020 for free if you link it to good old games. Wanted to know what its about.

Gm'd my first game of cyberpunk Red last night. It wasn't a long session just making some characters and introducing them to the rolling system. We usually play DnD 5e and Pulp Cthulhu. But I have been planning to take my original pulp Cthulhu campaign and send them on their way through a sort of X-files campaign in the same canon. And end it with a Cyberpunk campaign of battling the mythos in stylized neon horror.

I just wanted to thank you Seth. It was you who got me to buy Call of Cthulhu almost 7 years ago. It has helped me meet and spend time with my mom when otherwise I probably never would have. And it helpdd me foster friendships that I think will last a long time.

I hope that you get to read this and know that you are awesome.

So one thing I'm curious about is if CP Red and 2020 are backward compatible like Call of Cthulhu 7th and 6th editions are. The dice are the same, modifiers look the same for stats and skills, i think you could just print out the 2020 table for attack modifiers of shooting while running or standing, going prone, etc and have it work with Red if you wanted.

Just ordered my copy of Red today, very excited about the whole world overall.

The one thing I really didn't like about running Cyberpunk was the netrunning stuff. It was like the Netrunner regularly went off to play their own little mini-game that the other characters couldn't participate in. I really like the newer iterations of Cyberpunk rpgs that use an augmented reality overlay for hacking and require that the netrunner character be on site with the other characters to do it. Having the netrunner character go off into their own world to do their hacking thing works fine in genre fiction but it doesn't work very well in an rpg where everyone wants to play.

It’s crazy that this started from an RPG game

Love your Cyberpunk vids. Have you ever considered a How to Play C2020 series too? Would watch that in a heartbeat. I’m really stoked to GM C2020 but I keep running up against stuff that isn’t explained or just doesn’t make sense, despite being an experienced GM generally. Probably going to steal from CRED just to get by, but the 2020 Lifepath and FNFF overall have so much going for them. Thanks for the awesome content🤘🏻

"style and attitude based game" is right. I have CP Red Easy Mode, the 40ish page super condensed post-release rules, think like a modified Jumpstart Kit, and a lot of the rules and information are given in the way your new choomba might try to advise you fresh off the bus to Night City. Feels very personal and I love it.

Seth check out neon blood

I also think you're definitely right about Cyberpunk being a great system to run a zombie game in. But I wouldn't drop the Cyberware aspect of the game. Here's what I'd do instead.

The players have contracted a slow-acting variant of the zombie virus, one that, if they lived pretty stress-free lives, they'd probably die before they ever noticed. But of course, it's the apocalypse, and the stress of just surviving is slowly warping their bodies. It gives them a huge advantage as spontaneous mutations can suddenly pop up in the middle of a fight, giving them new weapons against the ravenous undead hordes, but the virus is slowly eating their brains and turning them into bloodthirsty, flesh-craving monsters. The story becomes a desperate struggle for survival as the players search for a cure, to save not only themselves but humanity as a whole.

Hello! So I got to where you were talking about the fumble table and I had to put what our house rule is fir that if you role a 1 you roll again on a 1-9 you subtract that from you the total from your skill and your stat so you might fail but its not crit fail, if you role a 10 then you role the fumble chart as normal now also to have balance if you roll a nat 10 you can only roll once more so a max of +20 just wanted to share!

Thanks Seth; you are awesome! Our group currently plays D&D 5e and we've also played some Mork Borg which was a lot of fun and I recommend. I played Traveller way back in the day and bought the starter book to try it out with our group. Your videos are invaluable! That said, we haven't tried it yet. Now, some in our group are into the CP video game and animated show. I'm very interested in trying the RPG. How would you compare the two? From your review videos, it seems to me that CP is more simple and easier to get into than Traveller; would you agree? Thanks so much for your content, help, and insight to these cool games!

haters: "I can't deal with the anachronistic timeline" plays Fallout 4

In your opinion Seth, what specifically about this game makes it a good fit for zombie survival? I’m new to cp2020 and just grabbed it based on this video.

In case anyone's freshly chipped in and looking back at this years-old video, I'd like to add a couple extra recommendations to Seth's book list. Corpbook 1 has all the information you need on Arasaka, the go-to Big Bad of the day, including their ultimate goal, notable NPCs and baked-in plot threads for GMs to use. Similarly, the Pacific Rim sourcebook has the background information on Japan itself, and how it (and Arasaka) got to where they are today. Those two together give you a real personal download on Night City's biggest bogeyman, and if you're fresh off the Edgerunners show it'll really help you understand just what your crew is up against.

On that note, if you want details on Adam Smasher as he was at the time Johnny was still kicking, his statline is in one of the pre-written adventure modules.

downloading and printing cyberpunk right now!

I just changed the years. My games are set in 2070. Ever since the early 90s my games had mobile phone/computer hybrids that I called "Portable Offices" - because it was pretty obvious that the bricky mobile phones and Apple Newtons were going to eventually a) merge, b) become more powerful and c) be a lot smaller... because who wouldn't want to have both a phone and a computer in their pocket at all times? I got the idea right but who knew they'd call 'em "smart phones"?
I'm in the "NPC Netrunner" camp. If the players need anything hacked, they hire a hacker to do it. That way the whole thing devolves down to a phone call and takes very little time out of the action. Also, if there's something a hacker wants but can't reach because it's an isolated system behind some serious locked doors and armed guards, the hacker might decide to hire a bunch of Edgerunners to pop in there with a USB stick to get the data and BOOM! the team has something to do.

I run it in an alternative 1987 where nuclear weapons were never invented and this resulted in years of war and technical development, love this game but playing it again recently with a new player 2 things occurred to me , firstly there are too many skills some of which are too similar fencing/melee etc and it never occurred to me before in 30 years playing that it is weird how being hit in arm/leg is far deadlier than being hit in Chest!

Hot dog eating contests! Why didn't I think of that?!

I am brand new to this game. No experience with netrunning yet. You can't really have a conversation about combat and damage without the built in damage reduction. Everyone gets DR (not called that) based on their Body Type stat and more based on armor. Still super deadly but a bit more manageable considering the damage dice. Combined with hit location so a vest only covers torso (3 in 10 chance). You need to cover torso, arms, legs and head with armor to reduce damage and not die. One thing I thought was maybe a bit off was you are MOST likely to be hit in the legs (4 in 10, 2/leg). Amor reduces between 10 and 20ish damage. With that in mind things are much less dramatically deadly than it might seem from this video. Still very deadly.

if you're not okay with space travel becoming commonplace by 1990, you're not okay with 90% of science fiction stories out there.

Or Cyberpunk 2120

Bill Gates must have read this

I'd love to play this but have no idea how to find a group of people playing this or how many people are actually still really playing this.

It's a retrofuture gem, I love this game. The only part I don't like is how the Netrunner characters have to basically play a session on their own to get the most out of the skill. Cyberpunk RED solves the issue in a smooth and efficient way, in my opinion.

Wasn't there a Fusion version of Cyberpunk (Interlock + Hero System)?

How did everyone sleep on this?

Cant wait for him to do Cyberpunk Red

Wow, Cyberpunk 2077 really captured the aesthetic of the original Cyberpunk 2020. The art is phenomenal.

Seth's costumes are always a treat, and that wig is something special.

Hi ☺️ thanks for the video.
Do you have any suggestions on running Never Fade Away starting adventure?

I come from the future Cyberpunk 2077 total disaster! You need to destroy the RPG! The world has been taken over by lag and glitches! You must do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening! Kill Arnny!! Kill Arnny!!

I came looking for Cyberpunk 2077 videos but uuuhh. Now I'm curious about the table top game. /shrug

The one thing I’m confused about is how combat doesn’t end with someone dead every time. Is armor and saves just much better than normal?

It's definitely a good game and the reviewer was correct in that In A lot of ways, 2077 is basically cyberpunk 2020 with the date simply moved 50 years into the future.

I loved this game as a kid

Very solid video, the anime got me researching both OG and RED cyberpunk TRPG's and they both look good in their own ways.

2077 will change your view on the time line bro it’s so beautiful I’ve slimed out a lot of people

I can't wait to, watch your Cyberpubk red review :)

This is 4 years old now, but a number of 2077 fans got into 2020 because it was a free reward for some preorders

Damn Jack the NPC, tell us how you really feel about people who question the timeline.

Well if nothing else, at least 2077 managed to make netrunning fun

Audios a bit off on this one...you definitely stepped your production value up over the years cause normally the audios nice and crisp!