Did a really good first session, but after a few other games we’ve been playing over the last few years the speed and ease of play of Cyberpunk came as a pleasant surprise. Mission oriented play and the players trying to avoid mess and lengthy combat issues certainly helped, but we ploughed through a lot more than I had planned on! Fortunately Cyberpunk is easy to improvise for, so I was able to improv the additional adventures and we had a really good session.
Next time I’ll be able to start incorporating some of the characters’ personal hooks. Looking forward to it. Still, there’s no reason why other Cyberpunk 2020/Red gamers can’t take advantage of my work as well. Check out the previous video/posts for what it’s all about and the rules changes we’ve been making.
Australian Bushfires
This is one of the adventure hooks we didn’t follow up on, but various companies in-setting have been using the fires as an excuse to test new equipment and gear, from AI assisted big-data processing to better predict weather and the best points to ‘attack’, to drone-swarm firefighting and other techniques. One of these efforts was an Australian tech start up, applying military and therapeutic exoskeleton technology to rescue applications. This is something some companies are already looking into, for load-bearing and equipment carrying – especially in high-rise fires, I just took the concept a bit further to a whole suit of ‘power armour’ designed for firefighting.
The mission would have been to insert into the fire zone and to steal the prototype for an unknown client. The mission would have been complicated by the fact that the start-up (FARPAC – Fire And Rescue Power Armature Concepts, based out of Northern Sydney), had been hired not to really fight the fire, but to retrieve certain objects and data from a ‘civilisational panic room’ mansion owned by an Australian billionaire.
Anyway, here’s the Power Armour prototpe stats, if you want to use them.
FARPAC Wahn X1 Proof of Concept Armature
Mission: Firefighting
Unit Cost: Approx 250,000 euros in raw materials and technology, perhaps double that in terms of actual value and work sunk into it. A production version might cost 200,000.
Chassis: Str 16, Lift 800, Carry 240
Toughness: 5 (Taken off damage before armour)
Armour: SP 15 (30 Vs Fire/Heat – add 10 to both values if not using CPRed)
Damage Modifier: D6+2 (Lethal)
Sensors: Wideband Aperture Helmet Sensors and AR Overlay
SIB: -2
DFB: +1
Controls: Advanced
Utilities: Bodyweight Med System, Self-Seal Compression, 4 Hour Life Support, 8 Hour Powerplant (combination pneumatic/LiS battery system. I’ve allowed LiS batteries to double capacity in-setting with no extra cost).
Head: 4 SDP
Internal: Wideband Aperture System SDP 15, Comm Link 5 SDP, 200 cost, 80km range.
Left Arm: 4 SDP
Internal: 1 Winch and Grapple – 20kg – 500 bucks, SDP 40
Internal: 2 Fire Extinguisher 10 kg, SDP 20, 4 uses. 500 bucks.
External: 1 Fire Extinguisher 10 kg, SP 10 SDP 20, 4 uses.
Right Arm: 4 SDP
Internal: 1 Fire Extinguisher 10 kg, SDP 20, 4 uses.
Internal: 2 Fire Extinguisher 10 kg, SDP 20, 4 uses.
External: 1 Large Power Saw, SP 1/3rd, WA -2, 8D6AP, 1250 bucks, 15 kg, SP 10, SDP 25.
Torso: 12 SDP
Internal: 1 Bodyweight Med System SDP 15
Internal: 2 Self Seal Compression SDP 50
Internal: 3 Self Seal Compression SDP 50
External: 1 Food/Filtration SDP 10
External: 2 Extended Life Support SP 20, SDP 20 – 4 hour support, 10 kg.
Left Leg: 8 SDP
Internal: 1 Self Seal Compression SDP 50
Internal: 2 CO2 Scatter Pack WA +3 50 capsules, ROF 1d6, Range 50m, weight 2kg, SP 10 SDP 20
External: 1 CO2 Scatter Pack WA +3 50 capsules, ROF 1d6, Range 50m, weight 2kg, SP 10 SDP 20
Right Leg: 8 SDP
Internal: 1 Self Seal Compression SDP 50
Internal: 2 CO2 Scatter Pack WA +3 50 capsules, ROF 1d6, Range 50m, weight 2kg, SP 10 SDP 20
External: 1 CO2 Scatter Pack WA +3 50 capsules, ROF 1d6, Range 50m, weight 2kg, SP 10 SDP 20
This is really little more than a wearable linear frame with lightweight, fireproof armour and an enclosed environment to protect from heat, smoke and fumes. The real innovation is in the sensor suite, heat shielding and feedback systems, enabling you to find and ‘feel’ your way as though you weren’t armoured at all.
Cryonics Heist
In the setting cryonics has fallen completely out of favour with tech billionaires since the advent of general intelligence AI and the prospects that creates for the potential of consciousness upload. That’s where all the money is going now, and so the bottom has fallen out – along with all the funding – for cryonics research, storage and preparation.
A new company, Osiris Medical Technologies has sprung up, consolidating the debts and resources of these groups and companies as they go bust. They only, however, seem to be taking on the corpsicles and frozen heads that are a) profitable or potentially profitable, or b) have been vitrified using more modern preservation techniques.
The client in this particular case has hired them to retrieve one particular frozen head from a shipment being moved across the country to San Francisco from Alcor in Scottsdale Arizona, which is being wound up.
The players created an epic distraction and went after the head before the convoy left, but I’d done prep as though they were going to attack the convoy. So here you go…
HEMTT A3 Hybrid Truck/Generator
Unit Cost: 450,000 euros
Top speed: 65mph
Utilities: All-Wheel Drive (Off Road), Military Radio, Improved Handling +1
SP: 44 Composite Armour (SP 25-35 in CPRed, assuming a ‘B-Kit’. Without B-Kit armour assume a basic steel-mantle armour of SP 15/10)
SDP: 100 (Body 5 – If not using Maximum Metal just reduce all incoming damage by 5 before armour)
ACC/DEC: 10/30
Range: 1200 miles
Mass Rating: 13 tons.
Refrigerated Military Container
A standard size shipping container with armour and a backup generator.
SP: 15
SDP: 50
Electronic Lock: DC 25
HUMVEE Hybrid
An electric/diesel hybrid civilian version of the popular military vehicle.
Top Speed: 100 mph
Utilities: Off Road, Pintle Mount.
ACC/DEC: 15/40
Range: 520 miles
SP: 10 (Upgraded, standard car body would have SP 5)
SDP: 60 (body 3, if not using Maximum Metal just drop all incoming damage by 3)
Osiris Medical Technology Convoy
The convoy consisted of the following:
2 x HUMVEE
1 x HEMTT Truck
Truck Driver x1
Hummer Driver x2 w/pistols
Hummer Guards x2 with SMG
Truck Guard x1 Elite w/Pistol
Medical Technician – Unarmed
Guards: 14 base attack rolls (16 for elite), 35/18 HP.
HK416A5 Carbine 15/10/15/20/25/30 WA +1, 100 round cassette, 5.56 (5d6) ROF 20
10mm Glock – 2d6+1 AP, 20 round capacity.
Snap-Out Batons D6
Body Armour vest and legs (Concealed) – 7 SP.
Smart Glasses/Wireless Smartlink/Biomonitor Wristband +1 WA.
Elite Guard: Right arm cyberarm 20 SP, SDP 30, Shield pop-out with gun brace – Protects head and torso, Skinweave (5 sp), Base Attack: 16
Tactics Under Attack: Rear car: brake, stop, leave vehicle and try to flank ambushers. Front car: interpose between truck and attackers, stay in cover/vehicle and, return fire. Truck: brake and reverse toward reinforcements. Otherwise ram through obstruction.
Osiris Medical Technology
“Taking you to the future.”
Total Assets: 600 million+
Incorporated: 10th August 2019
CEO: Dr Cranston Baird
Headquarters: Building 3, Bridgehead Road, Oakley San Francisco.
Associated Groups: 21st Century Medicine, ACS, BPF, LES
Foreign Partners: KrioRus
Osirus Medical Technolog sprang, seemingly, out of nowhere and gathered up the assets of the various bankrupted and struggling cryonics groups and foundations in the USA. They’ve been utterly ruthless and have discarded or ‘returned’ all remains frozen prior to the vitrification process.
They claim philosophical issues around ‘continuity of consciousness’ make digital upload non-viable as a true immortality and are spending a great deal of money on improving fMRI and other scanning technologies, nanotechnology, cloning and other associated technology that would be useful for ‘resurrection’.
HUAWEI Raid
I was underprepared for this one, but it meant travelling with smugglers to Hong Kong, infiltrating mainland China and breaking into Huawei’s big tech campus around their headquarters. The old campus, not the new, weird, pseudo-European one.
Besides normal security guards, surveillance and tech (such as drones, cameras and so on) the Chinese government has a vested interest in many of their companies and post political officers and even armed guards at key installations.
People’s Armed Police
Attack Rolls: 15 base.
35 HP
SP 7 light vests (CPRed).
Access to Gear:
QSZ-92 5.8mm Pistols WA+1, 20 round magazine, 2d6-1 damage.
QBZ-95 Assault Rifle WA+1, 30 round magazine, 5.8mm 5d6 damage
Norinco HP9-1 4 WA-1, round magazine, 12 gauge, 4d6 damage
Laser Rifle 20d6 (5d6) +1 WA
Bullet Proof Shields – SP 15
Security Drones: SP 10 SDP 15 – Electrical dart guns AP 1/4, D6 Taser effect.
Basic Power Armour: Body 12, Armour 20 +1 WA Smart Helmet.
Political Officers
30 HP
QSZ-92s.
Attack Roll: 12
Huawei Security Systems: DC 25
Server Smash
The mission here was to put a stop to an ‘open source AI’ project before it could ever take off. The nerds involved got backing from a splinter-gang of the Brainiacs, H-Squared, who were a bit more open to cybernetic enhancement beyond neuralware and ardent posthumanists.
Typical Gangbangers H-Squared
30 HP
2d6 Pistol +2 WA
2d6 SMG +2 WA
Awareness 19+2 (Optics)
Attack 12+3
Armoured Trench/Bodysuit/Skinweave combo SP11
Sensory Boosts/Software +2
Cyberoptics
Massive amounts of skillware – Any skill they are likely to need at +3
Drone Swarm: 1HP each, form a cloud of whirling ceramic fans that do 1d6x1d6 AP1/4 damage per turn.
Mongrel Robotic Guard Dog SP 15 HP 20, Jaws 2d6AP.
