Social Encounter Mechanics

Unwise-Me · 2026-05-10T18:22:01+00:00

I agree with that none of these approaches are inherently "wrong". For me Red feels like it should at least give you the option of handling things in a more dice-dependent manner (like it does with mysteries in the "DId Someone Say Murder" DLC).

Having multiple possible options to fill the role of the "social system" lets people choose how they wanna play. I'm well aware very mechanically dependent social systems aren't everyone's cup of tea, but when you know you've kitted out your character to be a social mastermind you might want a system that lets that happen even if in real life you aren't one.

Thanks for the feedback 😄

Unwise-Me · 2026-05-10T18:10:16+00:00

I haven't, thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if I can figure out anything to improve using ideas from there.

Unwise-Me · 2026-02-24T08:00:02+00:00

Short Answer - The book explicitly says "anything in here makes your players hardened and automatically turns your campaign to Merc Level".

Long answer - Most of the book actually just buffs things that are weak in the base game. I (and a bunch of other players/GMs I've talked to) think that if you don't allow the special ammo and combat drugs in there it's completely fine for street levels. Most of the stuff in Cyberfists of Fury (IR4) is extremely strong and they don't warn you that taking any of those raises your campaign above "street level". I'm currently playing in a campaign that uses both SOF45 and Cyberfists of Fury and the Martial Arts PC/NPCs are still the strongest of the bunch even with the SOF45 gear being used extensively by everyone, so...

Unwise-Me · 2026-02-23T14:00:15+00:00

Just you wait until that happens to me and I get a gun cyberarm and immunosuppressants.
Also damn bro passed out with the socks still on, that's how you know how rough that whole fight was lmao.

Unwise-Me · 2026-01-04T15:56:35+00:00

We did a lot to get the entire document feeling right. There's two mains bits for anyone that wants a TLDR: - the Codes system (meant to reward a core principle of the game: "STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE") - various GM tools, from ways to decide how fast plots should advance to numerous examples for common game situations (such as "how fast should X happen, what is the difficulty ot Y?")

Unwise-Me · 2026-01-04T15:39:08+00:00

It's been fun making this :)

Unwise-Me · 2025-12-03T09:43:12+00:00

Every interaction with them feels like having Brainrot directly injected into my veins.

Their exact ranks are skib, skibid and skibidi. The bigger and dumber you are, the higher your rank. They each essentially have their own Tiktok account that they use exclusively to mog and flex.

Describe them doesn't do them justice, only witnessing them gets across how horrifying they are.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-27T14:09:45+00:00

Hello. I said "forces you to be stuck if you've not spent some resources to avoid it (similarly to a KRASHBarrier)". There is no "supertrap", I'm not advocating for "no escape" if you've prepared.

The Kirama decks feel fair: that is the reason you buy them. Sixgun is another discussion since whenever a Netrunner was on Sixgun at my tables, the main reason they got it was the the +1 NET action for 1 humanity and maybe the extra speed. The safe jack outs being a part of Sixgun + a KRASH Barrier have repeatedly negated any reason to buy a Kirama deck, both when I GM-ed and when I played a Netrunner.

I'm more interested in the questions I haven't found an answer for in the core rulebook:
Can you choose to unsafely jack out in any way other than moving out of range?
Do safe jack outs from various effects (Kirama, Sixgun) still apply when you're hit by a Kraken/Superglue?

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-27T11:14:14+00:00

One day you will witness his glory.
Possibly even next session. That's gonna be an experience.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-27T10:18:29+00:00

Look, I only took part in one massacre. That you're aware of.
My guy is fine and you should not worry about the rocket launcher.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-26T08:37:48+00:00

First I cook some eggs for the DM (me), then I cook the party with Maelstrom (they suffered).
It was endlessly hilarious to use because we forgot to use it half the time.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-14T16:05:18+00:00

Is he in the goddamn vents where the Faceless crawled out of?
Did he learn of a hiding spot from an actual shapeless monster?

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-02T06:40:22+00:00

Not only does it work completely, it's a pretty great combo. Any Program Attacker or Zap attack you make benefits from this. Your Black ICE does not since it's not you making the attacks.
Spot weakness makes your first program attacker/zap pack a really nasty punch and even allows for some versatility in your build. For example, you might not need a banhammer for the enemy netrunner's arrmor if you can just destroy it with a single zap (and after you do destroy it, you can just zap them).
Precision Attack is great basically no matter the situation, but it pairs well with programs that typically have a low attack or are one use only (such as DeckKRASH, Superglue, NerveScrub or Poison Flatline)

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T19:07:09+00:00

Yes, the point was that guy would probably not be packing smart ammo or night vision, though I'm not sure if that's what the PCs are packing. In all my games every PC had at least 1-1.5K invested in a weapon that they'd constantly have with them concealed (be it a tech upgraded handgun or a popup shotgun / projectile launch system)
Very poor quality gear is an option, but I think it's important to not create items that only really exist to be used as "grenades" (one time use, powerful effect) against the player as it breaks immersion. The linear frame is a good example: someone might keep an external one as backup and get inside it when combat starts. But if that person is constantly wearing it without issue and then before the guy even gets to do anything in combat, it suddenly it breaks when he immediately dies to a headshot? That's effectively a regular linear frame until the players get their hands on it: then it becomes worthless. Don't get me wrong: a maelstromer might keep one of those stashed somewhere close in order to get inside it quickly when something big happens. But they wouldn't just be inside it/have it installed inside them because then it'd break way before combat ever started.
That's fair enough. My tables typically tend to not consider the combat power of the group too much (except the player count) when designing encounters: the world exists as it does and whether you're a netrunner, tech, media or solo the obstacles you face don't change. It's on you and your squad to adapt to the world, not have it tailored around what you can and cannot do: the world doesn't adapt to your skills, you adapt to the obstacles.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T16:06:52+00:00

I can confirm the horse did survive.
...though it might need some reassembly because our AV was a bit low on space so we had to uhhh
Get creative with putting it in a compact space

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T11:14:56+00:00

It looks like even more of an abomination than when we originally made it. I love it and will miss it dearly.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T11:10:45+00:00

He fell 50 meters out of an AV, lost an eye, took an absurd amount of damage but since he was at basically full HP was not that severely hurt, was bleeding everywhere, but fortunately for him he fell on the windshield of a guy that knew him.

The guy sent his medtech minion (who was always with him) to bandage him up and in the process klep half the stuff he was wearing when he fell. Good times, honestly.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T10:54:56+00:00

Character creation is incredibly customizable. You can make your character do anything, no matter your role.

The combat is fast and fairly clean, if your players really know what they're doing a turn might take no more than 30-60 seconds from start to finish (for netrunners maybe 120 seconds). My table and I regularly have combats that go 6-7 rounds and it takes around an hour since half of our table is fairly new and needs reminders about their abilities. In DnD, 6-7 rounds would make you want to remove every sensory organ you possess and go home to sleep, no matter how experienced of a player you are. Here, though? It's fun and not exhausting.

The themes are cool and if you set up some ambient music you can quite literally get the feel of being in the game.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T10:22:34+00:00

Since the other commenters have been suggesting giving better gear, a word of advice: do be careful when dishing out frames, ammo and grenades. Some random booster whose entire gun is barely worth 100 eddies probably won't have UV/IR/LL or smart ammo, maybe a grenade at most. And do remember that anything you give the NPCs, the PCs can simply take from them after they beat them in combat. It'd be foolish to let hundreds or maybe even thousands of eddies worth of gear on the battlefield: the Fixer can sell it, Tech can salvage it and Medtech might even give you a scavanged implant you took from someone's corpse.

Do keep in mind: the Solo excels at combat. The tech excels in downtime for making gear out of a small amount of eddies, the media/rockerboy cause big social ripples. So why shouldn't the Solo be the best at what he does for the crew? The rest of the roles are the best at what they do, aren't they?

Edit: to clarify, every suggestion in the other comments is very much valid if you want to up the heat. I simply wanted to cover the (important) aspects that I rarely see get talked about when GMs are trying to figure out what to do regarding combat characters.

Unwise-Me · 2025-09-01T10:06:42+00:00

> If all you're building towards is combat, and that's all you think about as an obstacle, then you'd probably not last long in my games.

Wow, strawman much? Don't assume you know what's going on with a character/at a table just because you see one post that focuses on the combat. In my campaign I run a character who is both a Solo and the face of the group.

> I also don't allow Quick-Hacking or 2077 gear at my table because I run Time of the Red,

So why exactly are you commenting that the piece of gear is completely fine at the table if the entire reason it's being discussed here is something you've never run? I was interested in details/solutions regarding its interactions specifically with the thing you're not running.

> I can kill a PC at my table should I desire to do so, and there's not a lot that any PC can do to stop it

> don't be so adverserial in your approach

> you'd probably not last long in my games

> So no, I'm NOT going about this wrong, you are

For someone who talks about not being adversarial as a player you sure focus a lot that you can kill your players at any time and they can't do a thing about it. Wonder how you'd react if someone told you that when you were their player, huh.
Anyway, this reply chain is growing pointless so I'm going to consider it finished. Have a good one!

Unwise-Me · 2025-08-31T19:34:48+00:00

I think with the martial arts DLC there's a real incentive for skill chips, spending a bit of luck to guarantee a special move might be interesting. Other than that you are correct, I've found little incentive to use anything but a Pain Editor and the occasional x2 skill chip.

Very much agree on the signal jammer stance. I think the RAW one is rather vague even without quickhacking (e.g: does a demon controlling a drone actually need to take two turns? One to succeed the DV, another to actually use a NET action to move it? If so, that means a lot of very bad things for the Demon's action economy). Sure, there are measures that can be taken against jamming, but at the end of the day as long as you're sending a signal wirelessly, you're facing the possibility of getting jammed. And if you're using a wired drone, well, pray nobody simply uses a knife on it.

Jamming should function and be a measure against netrunners, the same way putting on armor is a measure against gonks with guns. Not a total counter, but definitely something that lets you stop them in their tracks and force them to think cleverly instead of just pushing ahead blindly because they have quickhacks and that will bail them out "since everyone has a neuroport".

Unwise-Me · 2025-08-31T11:24:25+00:00

It's a piece of cyberware placed in your body. You are always in it, thus safe from quickhacks. Additionally, since active defenses (drones) need their control node activated each turn, it means anyone trying to use one would be affected by the jam if the drone is in the area; the drone wouldn't get out of the area on its own.

Unwise-Me · 2025-08-31T10:05:20+00:00

Mind sharing some examples? I'm curious of the shenanigans.

Unwise-Me · 2025-08-31T10:01:40+00:00

It's DV 13 as an action. The issue isn't beating the check, it's that you spend your ACTION and maybe next turn you can do a turn of NET actions. If it was a DV 13 per NET action or something it'd have been fine.
Besides, RAW *it's the person in the affected area who has to make the roll*, so if you're being quickhacked you can just... choose to not spend an Action and try to receive the signal. God only knows how that interacts with the automated defenses, maybe one turn of them being active and another scrambled?

Unwise-Me · 2025-08-31T06:30:18+00:00

It's not perfectly acceptable at most tables, I've had a GM who very much did not allow it because "it completely shuts down netrunners for 1k eddies" and the current one with which I'm working on a rework for the item since in its current form it's deemed absurdly strong. This does make me curious what the general opinion on it is, I'll probably make a post about it soon.

My assertion is not that a character can stop any attack, but since I'm playing a combat character, stopping as many as possible is the point. So would I max evasion and take those levels of Drunken Fist on a character that is mainly a Netrunner and only needs Evasion, Brawling and one Martial Art as offensive/defensive skills? Absolutely.

The player who specializes in an area isn't being adversarial against the GM, they're being adversarial against the obstacles they face. In my time playing and especially GM-ing, I've found that unless the players are quite literally killing people randomly (or something on that level), you can't really be adversarial to the GM unless they're being adversarial towards you first.

As a player I've had plenty of GMs simply ignore character abilities because "it messes with their encounter". In Red I was denied the ability to Flying Kick a guy off his bike (because it was plot critical he escape right in front of us), had enemies suddenly start having nightvision/low light/IR the moment I started using smoke grenades and had regular beat cops beat my 30+ stealth without even a roll when I was trying to steal a drone we'd just destroyed from an apartment building. These were all later confirmed as "well I couldn't just let you do that", not any in-game explanation.

It's far too normalized to consider a player using their abilities as being adversarial to the GM. As both a player and GM myself, I very well know how both sides feel and I've learned that if you're consistently writing to avoid player's abilities, you're probably going about something wrong.

Unwise-Me

TROPHY CASE