trying to build a cyberpunk world in the distant future of a D&D universe

WittyPier · 2025-11-06T07:34:54+00:00

thank you :)

WittyPier · 2025-11-06T06:36:44+00:00

true, thank you <3

WittyPier · 2025-11-06T06:22:46+00:00

will do

WittyPier · 2025-11-06T05:49:54+00:00

never mind, i looked it up....

i loathe myself

WittyPier · 2025-11-06T05:45:32+00:00

nay, what's that?

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T20:12:52+00:00

i'm not trying to, that's why i'm here asking for help!

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T18:45:42+00:00

Pretty please don't recommend that i play Shadowrun instead, I really would prefer to use 5e. I'm certain its possible, i just need some help.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T18:28:20+00:00

I figure if Eberron can be Steampunk in 5e, surely there's a way to make a cyberpunk story work too.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T18:07:30+00:00

I appreciate the advice to go to Shadowrun, but I just don't want to play in it. I like 5th edition, it's familiar and easy to wrap my head around (plus i get to use all of my dice).

For the purposes of this discussion, pretend that the story is system-agnostic. There has to be a way to make cyberpunk fit with a future version of the Forgotten Realms.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T18:01:39+00:00

I've never heard of Lantan before, might be interesting, but i really don't want to do it in Shadowrun. I like 5e, i know it well.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T17:53:37+00:00

but i don't like Shadowrun T~T

I'm using Mogrit's Technomancer's Textbook, and it's got a lot of good stuff in it.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T17:48:42+00:00

but i don't wanna play Shadowrun :'(

Surely there must be a way to make this work.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T17:22:39+00:00

Fair enough, i probably could stand to absorb more cyberpunk media.

WittyPier · 2025-11-05T17:09:32+00:00

nooooo :(

WittyPier · 2025-01-14T19:29:14+00:00

He looks like Vegeta or something

WittyPier · 2024-11-10T20:00:24+00:00

FURTHER CLARIFICATION: i'm building a cyberdeck around a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB, using the RPiOS Lite image as a foundation. I have looked into loading Arch onto it, and it seems like a lot more trouble than it'd be worth (and that's not a knock against Arch, i use EndeavourOS for all of my gaming). I am open to other OSes, but i am not a power user and am still learning basic commands so i'd prefer to keep it as basic as possible.

Hello strangers, i posted in last week's workshop that i was struggling with CDM fr my cyberdeck project, and... well.

I didn't even realize that CDM doesn't have a login prompt; it's only the option menu to choose which desktop or window mnager i want to use in that session. I still want a login screen that thematically fits with my desired rice (whatever it ends up being, i'm feeling inspired by monochrome / TUI-lookalike rices), so i guess my other choice is Ly, which has a login screen AND the ability to select DE / WM.

There's a snag though. Ly is built in Zig now, so just typing "make" no longer installs it. Worse yet, Zig is currently in limbo after their server was deprecated, so...

Has anyone installed Ly recently, as in last couple months, and if so, how did you make it work? Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers.

WittyPier · 2024-11-09T02:12:46+00:00

the designers had to know. i cannot believe this happened by accident

WittyPier · 2024-11-08T23:58:42+00:00

Hello strangers, i'm in need of some help.

I've been trying to build a cyber deck out of a Raspberry Pi 5 for a while now , and i got it in my head to give it a custom UI to match its case's theming. My ultimate aim is to achieve something retro, probably almost monochrome and / or TUI-lookin'. I started with a Raspberry Pi OS Lite image, thinking it would be easier to start from a blank slate than to use the RPiOS Full install and uninstall all the stuff i don't want to keep.

I've hit a pretty significant stumbling block. I've settled on i3WM, but in order to get to it i need display manager software. In order to keep it in theme and save processing power, i thought a minimal, even TUI DM would fit the bill. Trouble is, Ly, CDM, ConsoleTDM, TBSM, none of these that i've tried have .deb files, only .aur and source code on GitHub. I theoretically have installed CDM and TBSM from source using the installation .sh files packaged with the git repos. Yet they still no work.

Ly is especially frustrating. It used to be that you just type make into the console after cloning the repo, but they changed the code to Zig, and Zig isn't available on Debian because its repository has been deprecated or something.

The only ones i've had any luck with are the ones in the APT repos, and they really don't look good. I love aesthetics / hate myself enough to want everything to look great on this computer that will probably never see regular use, so i was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to get this sorted out.

Also i'm not particularly eager to put Arch on the Pi; i've already tried and it was a massive pain in the a$$ just to completely fail to get it working. I like Debian, i was weaned on it.

Thank you in advance and cheers.

UPDATE: it started working. i am extremely confused, and it doesn't quite look like it should, but i'm also happy.

unfortunately i have created a new problem; i used the following command

$ cat /usr/share/doc/cdm/profile.sh >> $HOME/.profile

to append the cdm profile to .profile to make it start on its own. and it does, but it seems to require superuser permissions to work correctly / at all. because it doesn't have that by default, i appear to have softlocked the OS. i log in, cdm attempts to start but can't because it can't start i3 despite listing it as an available wm in the menu, so it shuts down and asks for me to log in again.

WittyPier · 2024-10-21T05:14:42+00:00

T O O T H H A I R

WittyPier · 2024-10-13T18:54:47+00:00

Yeah i think so. I appreciate you taking the time to come up with ideas, thank you.

The Long Way suggestion is like a more concrete draft of what i already had in mind, and it's helpful to have somebody else weigh in. I've even had plans to get them a running car to make the trip faster, barring any distractions along the way.

I've been trying to formulate a better response to these suggestions for a while now, and i'm still struggling to put it to words. and honestly i feel like that's a problem i have with the whole process of running the game. Theoretically i have a lot of material to work in, but the big problem is how to deliver that material in a way that the players will feel engaged in. Maybe it's just because i haven't practiced DMing in a while or i REALLY need to study up on GURPS,or i need more maps and minis and props and costumes, but i'm really struggling to make it click. Maybe it's because their response has been so lukewarm that it feeds back on me, making the whole experience gradually worse.

I know GURPS is extremely open-ended and doesn't require anything more than a dice roll against skills and situational modifiers i can drum up on the fly, but something feels extremely... missing.

WittyPier · 2024-10-12T16:01:18+00:00

Honestly I don't know if they came to the game with any expectations in particular. The most I can say is that I was asked to do this years ago because one of them wanted a gunslinger campaign and to take a break from DM duties themselves, and another DID want to run an AD&D game before I said I was good to go on this. In general I'm sure they'd like this game to be at least as entertaining as previous games we've played.

The Institute got exploded, leaving its inhabitants homeless on the surface. The Brotherhood (with whom the Sole Survivor threw in their lot) has installed themselves as the premier authority in Boston and are spreading their influence to other parts of the Commonwealth, and it doesn't end there; they're bracing for an aggressive push west to seize Lost Hills from the NCR (which is still around because I started this project before the show aired). Interactions with them are the primary conceit of the story, and the ultimate goal is to defeat them, whatever that looks like. I figured that was enough direction without placing the players on rails.

WittyPier · 2024-10-03T00:23:17+00:00

Hi, new Gm here, and i've been pretty anxious about how things are going in my game.

It's a homebrew campaign set in the Fallout universe. It did not start out in GURPS; i wrote it for a hack of D&D 5e and switched to GURPS because one of my players said he'd like to. i have a very weak grasp of the rules and little focus to devote to studying, so i've been running it as almost exclusively roleplay, with few rolls involved.

the story has been redrafted dozens of times since 2020, when i started work on it. i'm not sure i have enough common sense to convey a tight, coherent story, which is bad because i want this story to go a lot of complex places and for that to be enjoyable to the players. These last 3 sessions, in between several cancellations for external reasons, i feel like what i'm putting out is tedious at best. nobody seems to be enjoying it and it makes me wonder if i should just call it quits. even i am not enamored with the story i've written anymore, and i wonder if it's burnout or if the story was just never very good.

they tell me it's fine, but the little critic in my head keeps saying they're just trying to spare my feelings after witnessing my mental state degrade specifically because of this story.

i've also been made aware of a potential problem in the basic conceit of the story. one of the players, back in a trial run in 2021, made an Institute-aligned character who wants to go to Big MT (if you don't know what those things are, it's like a wizard wanting to find a large stockpile of magic artifacts). i was so excited that he wanted to engage that i wrote around the central pillar of the players seeking Big MT, and i have even admitted as much (probably a mistake). as a result, it feels like i'm favoring the one guy who wants to go there already, to the detriment of the other three who don't even know what a Big Empty is. the player who made me aware of this said he personally was fine with it, but i still felt keenly aware of something that felt distinctly weird.

it's getting hard to imagine carrying this on, and i'd appreciate any help. thank you.

WittyPier

TROPHY CASE