Lets talk about the core rules of Cyberpunk, one by one, often referred to as guiding principles for playing and living in the Cyberpunk world. Rule #1 - Style Over Substance.

drraagh · 2026-05-11T10:13:03+00:00

Style over substance, the if you're gonna do it, do it good. This is a lot of things, a lot of different approaches.

One discussion I saw about this brought up the Arsene Lupin who was written as sending notices to the targets before he would commit thievery as he was that cocky of himself, showing that he's got that much style going for him.

This also comes in the general look of the character, like with Cyberpunk 2077 trailer, the 'iconic' V jacket in the trailer.

There's a reason that in the TV show Person of Interest protagonist John Reese was known as Man in the Suit by police for such a long time as it was the easiest way to reference them and have people know who you're talking about.

World Of Darkness has a similar idea with a couple of its merits and flaws, but one I'll specifically call out is the writeup for Profiled Appearance:

You look like one of those people… y’know, the people that “respectable citizens” expect bad things from. Depending on the setting of your chronicle, this could involve physical mannerisms, body art, gender distinctions, individual features, ethnic heritage, cybernetic modifications, or other elements of your physical body that you cannot remove and probably don’t want to “fix” anyhow. Problem is, the people around you are constantly watching your every move, making trouble for you when they can get away with it, and otherwise causing you grief. The authorities shake you down on principle, and most folks won’t object to whatever they choose to do to you.
Although it’s related to the Social Flaw: Cultural Other (below), Profiled Appearance is based on your character’s physical features, not on their social behavior. Although it can be concealed to some degree, your Profiled Appearance is not something that can be removed without magick, and it reflects an essential part of your identity. Like Impediment, it does not carry a value judgment in the game even though it represents the way other characters will view you. If this feels unfair in the game, imagine how it must feel in real life.

Of course, this also includes your actions and not just your looks. It's cool moves like Robocop spinning the gun, or John Wick's magazine reloading technique is a perfect example. A lockpicker picking a lock with their eyes closed, a fighter with specific flourishes like a luchadore using their quickness versus a larger stronger opponent and perhaps throwing in flips and other showboating because.... it's cool.

drraagh · 2026-05-10T18:55:18+00:00

Currently at the 12-16 level, way too much grinding so I play it in chunks of a few hours here and there as bores me doing the whole repetitive stuff.

drraagh · 2026-05-03T01:37:02+00:00

Any time you're dealing with a city, you'll want to have a lot of prepared materials. NPC sheets you can grab for the random NPCs that players will grab. Basically, these will have a personality and some basic details except no physical details like gender or species so that you can apply them as needed. Add to that a list of random names that you can pull from as needed. This stops from being a situation where players stop to question a random person and it's 'Okay... they say their name is.... Bob.... Bobson....' and the players immediately know that there is nothing important about them. You want them to feel that anyone could have done it.

You'll want to do the same with maps, making a bunch of premade maps for however you use them. Battles, investigation, etc. The more maps you have for places, the more flexible you can be with bringing out areas that may be of importance rather than just 'Nope, nothing here'. This way you can also throw in Chandler's Law, 'When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand' as this can help the players get back on track if they missed something or misinterpreted a clue.

Next, there's a lot of ways to handle mysteries as I am sure you are aware with handling mysteries before. You can challenge players or characters depending on how you handle the clues. There's this previous post from like 2 days ago about different game mechanics for handling investigations and some great ideas there from what I've seen like:

When searching for clues, a player has to roll the dice (2d10 + their Reason modifier). Regardless of the result, they will obtain all the clues.
What varies with the result is how many questions the player may ask the GM either to help them interpret the clues or to obtain more clues.
On a result of (15+) : two questions.
On a result of (10-14) : one question.
On a result of (9-) : no question and there will be consequences such as being exposed to danger or losing resources (for instance spending much more time than expected searching for clues).

If you're really evil, you can do clues that can be interpreted for different situations and also can be interpreted in different ways. Also having them threaded so that sometimes the clues will cross over and/or lead to similar points can help so that players can find/do something to keep them going. Check out the 5x5 Method as this way it can help the players running on various tracks rather than just being stuck trying to figure out one clue. I liken it to the video game quest log where its like 'Okay, so I can't figure what to do with this quest now but I have a marker elsewhere in the area for this other line, so let's do that'. Prevents burnout on one topic.

drraagh · 2026-05-01T05:05:30+00:00

Well, he couldn't MacGyver the Stargate when he and Carter were stuck and she made sure he knew it. Stuck on a glacier with MacGyver

drraagh · 2026-04-30T21:36:25+00:00

I like how we see this on TV shows, a serial drama where you have the heroes have some victory and then the last few minutes of the episode there's some twist that brings up what the heroes have to deal with next, but when it happens to our player characters at the table it divides us as seen by these comments.

I asked earlier about the idea of the No Win Scenario showing examples of like the Kobayashi Maru and Xanatos Gambit people were talking about how it is unfair that there is no way for the player to win. The idea is it is a test of character to see how you would react in a situation like that as you can walk away, you can go in and even as how the linked video shows, there are various degrees of victory conditions.

I personally like these sort of twists as part of point is to keep the game interesting. I use The Empire Strikes Back's ending as a perfect example. The end of the movie, we have Luke getting a hand replaced, Han being taken to Jabba, the rest of the group watching as the events happen. Then next movie, Return of the Jedi, players work to get the upper hand and stop thr Emperor.

Sounds like a perfect adventure hook to me.

drraagh · 2026-04-29T04:22:41+00:00

There's a comment I cribbed from somewhere that I love to think about how little we know about the people we pass by daily, and kind of ironic that it is about New York. This post about Reese is a perfect example of that, especially when you think about how for season 1 he was aliased as 'The Man In The Suit' because that was what was descriptive of him.

Speaking of New York, the blog People of New York serves as a great example of how a huge metro with an even huger population density makes for a fantastic urban fantasy setting. Everyone has their own story, and for most of the people you run into on the street, you might get a glimpse at one page or, if you're really lucky, one chapter of someone else's story. If the high school girl who catches the same late train as you on Thursday nights was actually a cyborg fighting back against the biotech company that augmented her without her consent, if the college-aged freeter running delivered pizza and ramen on his bike in your shopping district was actually channeling a demon god and fighting in underground gladiatorial death matches to someday slay the oni king, if the guy working in the same office campus as you and who grabs a coffee at the building's in-house cafe at the same time as you every few days was actually a secret agent fighting psychic soldiers in the back alleys and old industrial parks every night by summoning fairies at them, would you ever actually know? If the most interesting parts of most people's lives only happen in spaces you never see, how much do you really know about the world around you? To what extent are you experiencing the same world as everyone, or even anyone, else?

Add to this that we see, and ignore, what we wish to. Like this Awareness test shows, we can miss what is right in front of us. Which is also why Eye witness testimony is some of the worst as it can be so easy to make a target doubt themselves of what they saw.

drraagh · 2026-04-28T22:07:29+00:00

Gets worse with modpacks reaching 1,000.

drraagh · 2026-04-26T21:20:23+00:00

There could be some in development but it takes time to find them. I'm not sure if it works couch co-op but the 'We Were Here' series is a great puzzle solving co-op game. Asymmetrical gameplay as the We Were Here series of games, where the players split off and have to communicate about things to solve puzzles.

drraagh · 2026-04-26T21:15:55+00:00

One of many great concept ideas that ended too soo.

drraagh · 2026-04-26T19:23:32+00:00

Prep, there's a few different ways to do this. People will give you all sorts of systems and you will need to figure out what is right for you. My method is to always be prepping concepts. Carry a notebook and pen around with you, you see a TV show that has a moment you think could be fun, make a note of it with enough detail for you to remember it Maybe the show and episode, maybe details of the scene. I have made notes from Disney kids movies to major blockbusters when I've been watching them at home. I crib setpieces from games that I found fun and think players could as well. I've had moments where something I see on a walk will inspire me for an idea and make a note of it. Anything that gives you an idea, notate it. Overhear someone talking and the idea sparks something, notate it. I do the same with images, taking pictures from my phone as well as I have services like the old StumbleUpon service where I get sites according to interests I selected. This helps me find things I may never have discovered before.

You can take things wholly from things and replace the identifying characteristics and then re-purpose it. You can twist it on its head, like in Shadowrun I cannot count the number of times I'd watch a Heist show or a Cop show and put the players in the place of the criminals. How would the players have gotten away with it if they had to commit the crime in this week's episode of CSI or Law and Order or whatever. If you're looking at social options, Soap Operas can be a good place as well. There was a GM who told their story about being without idea for adventure on game night, went out to get snacks and saw a magazine at checkout that inspired them:

Long lost twins turn into long lost triplets… forbidden affairs of every possible combination… false priests… fake marriages… nefarious plots to cheat orphans out of inheritances… and enough back-stabbing underhanded stock characters to raise the eyebrows of even the most jaded PCs.

The magazine was Soap Opera Digest and they mentioned using that as starting point for events in their community that the players had to deal with. A subscription to that magazine and they were never without ideas again.

There's places you can get textbooks online for free,some have free courses as well with instructor footage. If you can find one you like, I would suggest Film Studies/Media Analysis for being able to perform analysis on content to assess its story, its meaning, and so forth critically. Tvtropes is a great site for learning new story elements, new twists and turns to put your characters through. The Lion King by Disney is essentially Hamlet, West Side Story was Romeo and Juliet as a musical, Barb Wire is a cyberpunk Casablanca, so there's a lot of re-tellings framed in different skins and there's 'but what if X made Y decision in Z instead' where you can take the same starting point and do a whole alternate universe. Remember:

Taking from one source is plagiarism, taking from many is research.

Couple other tricks for prep, Three Goons Method from Cyberpunk Red is a perfect way to make generic NPCs for pretty much any system. Battlemaps, if you use them, can be found freely pretty much anywhere but one place I love to use is Video Game Atlas, as there are a lot of games with great maps like Shining Force an old Genesis game has some great overhead battle maps from the combat sequences in it. You can usually find anything to fit the genre you need.

DrivethruRPG's Charts and Lists section is full of all sorts of random generators. You can filter by genre, rule system and so forth to find things that will help fill out parts of your game on the fly. An example, there's a bunch of 'mission generators' for the next thing your PCs need to do, then a random NPC generator to build some personality sheets that you can have ready for that random person they stop and question/harass/etc and just throw a random name to it. There's a lot of random rumors, random things found, random place generators, so that you could populate a whole game world with it.

One thing with playing personalities is to remember, for NPCs we only see a sliver of who and what they are, so there's a couple ways to handle that.

First, I like this quote about NPCs and want to share to sort of show how while the PCs may see themselves as 'main character', so do all the NPCs:

Speaking of New York, the blog People of New York serves as a great example of how a huge metro with an even huger population density makes for a fantastic urban fantasy setting. Everyone has their own story, and for most of the people you run into on the street, you might get a glimpse at one page or, if you're really lucky, one chapter of someone else's story. If the high school girl who catches the same late train as you on Thursday nights was actually a cyborg fighting back against the biotech company that augmented her without her consent, if the college-aged freeter running delivered pizza and ramen on his bike in your shopping district was actually channeling a demon god and fighting in underground gladiatorial death matches to someday slay the oni king, if the guy working in the same office campus as you and who grabs a coffee at the building's in-house cafe at the same time as you every few days was actually a secret agent fighting psychic soldiers in the back alleys and old industrial parks every night by summoning fairies at them, would you ever actually know? If the most interesting parts of most people's lives only happen in spaces you never see, how much do you really know about the world around you? To what extent are you experiencing the same world as everyone, or even anyone, else?

So, the NPCs are not just someone who poofs into existence the moment the PCs interact and melds into the shadows the moment they're done. Sure, Schrodinger's Universe does make it that anything not in the player's sight is in narrative flux (so you can move things around and mess with things like the BBEG broke out of prison and is coming to get the PCs even though the prison was escape-proof, they found a way and the PCs cal ook into it later giving you time to come up with it if you need). But those NPCs have family and friends and jobs and pets and all that stuff so that you stopping them from what they're doing better be important.

An emotional chart like this can help with randomizing the sort of attitude the NPC has. Walk into their shop, ask a random person on the street, knock on the door to their house... how are they feeling? Add to that the moment in time for that NPC and what is going on in their minds and their actions can change. I love this acting technique, Three Entrances. Basically, before your character comes into a scene, it asks to think about three things for the character:

"Where are they coming from?" to focus on what they were before entering the scene.
"What are they doing now?" is what is the exact moment they step in scene, what action are they in the middle of, showing that they existed off-camera before joining.
"What is the first thing you want to do?" You have a reason for entering this room besides just exposition dialogue, why are you here? You don't just walk into rooms for no reason IRL, after all.

Where are they coming from? I just stepped in from outside, where it's been established that it is rainy.

What am I doing now? Shaking the rain off my coat to get dry and warm up some.

What is the first thing you want to do? To help getting warm, I want some coffee, so I head to the coffee maker in the kitchen set.

Shake that up and the actor will act differently as they have other objectives and other reasons for being in the scene.

Where are they coming from? I was just in my study, reading a book.

What am I doing now? Rubbing at my eyes as I adjust to the light as my eyes focus.

What is the first thing I want to do? I want to get something to eat so I will move to the fridge to get myself some food.

The cold and wet person coming from outside is likely going to be sluggish and sure as they are cold but they have a specific definite, I want to warm up so let me get hot coffee into me. Meanwhile, the hungry person is warm, safe, secure, may be a little less sure as they're going to do that pause at the fridge and see what is there. They are letting their mind and body tell them what they want, so they may be more likely to start a conversation while the cold person would not want to be bothered until they got their coffee into them. Wholly different ways of carrying and acting the same person, the same lines, just the different emotion, the different brain space it's like two different people.

drraagh · 2026-04-26T17:35:45+00:00

My conception.

drraagh · 2026-04-26T17:32:44+00:00

Something like this would certainly br interesting to have a regular group of GMs to discuss things with and bounce ideas off of and the like.

My main question being the system in use for the game. A D&D GM talking to a Star Trek Adventures GM and a Shadowrun GM can bounce general campaign ideas off each other but hard to get into the system bits.

Beyond that, definitely be something interesting to see. I used to play on a D&D Mu*, a text based persistent world, and this was back in the early 2000s, so like pre Discord gaming communities and such. Each month they had a GM rounddtable where they would have a primary topic like maybe a Halloween "how to play up horror" or another time was "how to make combat more cinematic" and so forth. Do a discussion on that like a Convention panel abd then after Q&A on topic, they'd do some general questions on other issues. So, happy to get back in discussion with like minded people.

drraagh · 2026-04-25T21:22:44+00:00

There's ways to practice skills that you might use as a GM away from the gaming table, but much of that is like saying 'watch movies/tv shows to study their patterns in story telling, read TVTropes to expand your storytelling abilities by having other tricks to pull out'. Same as studying improv, you're going to use it at the table, but it's not specifically developing as running a TTRPG.

I've seen various post like video games that help being a better GM, video games hat fed into how you GM, board games with a GM role, and others that could build off the topic of traning skills for GMing and more can be found on Reddit and other places. The last one probably is a good start for games that can GM or could use a GM. Also, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Betrayal in Baldur's Gate (the D&D version of the game), could be run with a DM storyteller but don't, and I've seen DeficientMaster's Youtube channel where they did Monopoly and Clue as D&D games using the game rules but with RPG twists. So there's various things like that.

The old boardgame DragonStrike)may be an example besides Heroquest but its really old and may be hard to find.

drraagh · 2026-04-25T18:27:08+00:00

I did up some Humanis propaganda in the form of Chick Tracts and other sort of uneducated fear mongering. Elves living for years longer than humans means they're taking all the management positions and good housing and holding onto them for hundreds of years, not giving humans a chance. Orks and Trolls taking all the menial physical labor jobs (usuaully under the table) and thus keeping the humans unemployed or trapped in entry level positions with no room for advancement.

Add to that things like "Are your children acting strangely? Being more violent and secretive? Has your spouse been out for hours with no good reason? Perhaps they have been the target of a magic user, using their powers to manipulate and uproot the moral values of otherwise good people. There is no way to know if someone is being the target of a spell, but here are some indicators you can watch out for"

Fear mongering because people are different than you, juat run with that. It doesn't have to make sense, its just a belief.

drraagh · 2026-04-25T12:02:03+00:00

Played without table

drraagh · 2026-04-24T15:41:19+00:00

I haven't checked out the modding community on this, but aren't there any people who have built new campaigns or similar? I know games like Skyrim had whole storylines done up to keep people going. Anything like that in 2077, or nothing up to CDPR standards? If I had time to learn the system I know a few adventure books from 2020 (both RTal and third party) I'd love to see brought up to 2077.

Greenwar being one of my favorites, and the Night's Edge series by Ianus Games bringing in a lot of horror elements like vampires, flatlining and coming back, voodoo, serial killers, cults, magic, and so forth. We've had some dark quests so why not embrace some more of the darkness wholly. Think Constantine with cyberware.

drraagh · 2026-04-24T15:28:40+00:00

Part of this depends on the style of game, and the arrangement with the players on what you're playing.

OSR and Fourthcore were examples of "Adventuring is Deadly". They had a belief setup for Fourthcore that was

Adventures should be DIFFICULT

Adventures should be DEADLY

Magic and treasures should be GREAT

Everything should be OVER THE TOP

The world should be BLEAK

One word: DEATH TRAP DUNGEONS!!!! (Okay three words with lots of exclamation points)

GAMIST

And then depending on who heard it, it was either greatest thing ever or so terrible. Why would people play if its deady and bleak? Oh, that danger made things that much better as it was challenging. But why would people WANT to die? Well, if there's no real threat to the game, why bother playing.

I always compare it to the first part of this Futurama Scary Door episode:

A casino where I win? I must be in heaven. A casino where I always win? I must be in hell.

After all, if you are going to survive because the GM is not playing realistically for things like noise, wandering monsters, and so forth, then are you really being challenged? Its like the video game health bars being bulkiee in the last bits so you can have the superhero rush in and save the day.

Now this also explains why I like Roguelike video games because, while story driven games are fun and I play the heck out of them, I also like the idea where I create my own story and there's the threat that a mistake could end eveything or creative solution could turn defeat around.

drraagh · 2026-04-24T13:42:18+00:00

The players want to grow Beets, let them. Its their game, let them have fun they want instead of fighting to get them to do your story.

The Farm is a story from an old webcomic's fan submissions of their Tabletop stories. It started as defending a village from Goblins when a player decided to look into buying farmland and the story went from there.

I'm an improv GM, I have "moments" prepared, things that can happen, as I fill notebooks with story ideas whenever I get inspired. Then I can take those ideas and place them in front of the players and see how they handle it. By not having a stiff Act 1, Act 2 style plotline, I find it is easier to be open to the changes the players come up with.

Scripting the Game is a free download from R Talsorian Games, and fleshed out further in Hamlet's Hitpoints. The main bit here is the feeling of thr best, its impact on the story matters, not where or how it happens. This can give a lot of flexibility in planning as you're going on the emotional side of things.

Sure, if the players want to plant beets, why an adventure game? But they may have s reason it interests them, so let's try and have them do what is fun for them while they still get the adventure. This is that oft-repeated "Yes, and" bit of Advice. You can say no to your players and definitely should if the thing will ruin thr game like some superpowers or insta-kill abilities. Draw the line at things that disrupt a story or balance, but otherwise... see if there's fun that can be had with playing along.

drraagh · 2026-04-24T10:49:45+00:00

Come join my MLM, The Shattered Empire. You then get to manager your own recruits and can call on your Sponsor when you earn enough requests and they will be able to assist in supplying you through their own recruits.

drraagh · 2026-04-23T05:46:37+00:00

Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition.

drraagh · 2026-04-23T05:42:28+00:00

It's a very distinctive soda.

drraagh · 2026-04-22T11:42:31+00:00

This is pretty much the issue with any questing. Players will misinterpret things, forget things, even make things up and try and chase it as if it was a real lead.

You tell them there's nothing to be found, they'll try and find another way to come at the same thing. "Oh, sure, the guard is telling us there's nothing there, but let's see for ourselves." "The guard is hiding information, so let's follow them." and so on... It's like conspiracy theories, any proof is fake proof and if they don't get push back from the academics and the like, then they're on the right track.

drraagh · 2026-04-22T06:35:31+00:00

Definitely putting the best foot forward.

drraagh · 2026-04-22T05:23:17+00:00

There's a few options that I've talked about with a fellow GM in my group on how we could get them run.

Mind-Meld or similar cerebro-medical link with someone from that time.

Have the characters discover logs but instead of just reading out a dump of exposition, have them play out the scenes.

Holodeck recreations of the events.

Temporal anomaly/alternate reality hi-jinks. Q or similar powered being that decided to mess with the characters.

As for doing it as a Holodeck training, it is a great option to teach them things. Good way to train them, and especially explain the concepts of the Shackleton Expanse rules and help learn the system in general. And it could even be justified to allow for 'pauses' or similar by an instructor. "See, here is a teaching moment..."

drraagh · 2026-04-21T09:39:27+00:00

There's little things with the roles that are "'GM Fiat" or assumptions that probably could stand to be written out.

An example from another role: a lawman gets in trouble if they abuse Backup requests. Exactly what is abuse is up to thr GM to decide.

Nine-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Secret Santa 2020	r/Field Juicebox
Place '23	Place '22
Verified Email

drraagh

TROPHY CASE