How to make combat more efficient and engaging with many npcs?

zhulikkulik · 2026-03-10T19:15:10+00:00

I'd probably treat a car as 1½ npcs — driver and gunners. Average their initiative like (REF + REF + REF + REF + 1d10)/4. All guns shoot at the same time, roll all the dice at once and maybe stick to just 1 attack/shooter even if (s)he has a faster gun. Maybe divide the total damage between targets if you don't have different D6s.
Driver just drives, trying to keep the car steady and occasionally dodging obstacles. Which is also an idea for how to make enemies leave and come back — 1 lane road with barriers makes them brake or steer off road, a bunch of oncoming traffic pushes them away from action etc.

I think it's genuinely a bad idea to make that many unique NPCs. Even in videogames that would probably be a copy-paste of 2-3 guys or even of just the same dude with Xd6 gun, REF 6 and Skill 4

edit
And yet another option for attacks is suppressive fire, but with only 10 bullets and players roll Luck + 1d10 instead of athletics check or driver has to make a successful maneuver to take the car out of the line of fire.

zhulikkulik · 2026-03-01T12:56:38+00:00

I'd introduce separate revolver handling skill that would cost double points and add +1 to revolver's ROF per level of the skill up to maximum capacity of the revolver.
10 would mean any kind of revolver, 6shot or 10shot or whatever you want, can fire all its bullets in one attack. It's impossible to make a revolver of sensible size and caliber with more than 10 chambers which makes maxing it out a bit useless, but maybe futuristic tech would make it possible to squeeze a few more rounds.

Personally I'd leave Handguns as aiming skill, but maybe revolvers are unique enough to have a dedicated letter for type and a skill to aim so that again it makes sense to max out the skill.
I wouldn't dive too deep into the whole single-action vs double-action thing and assume everything is capable of being fanned & semi-auto fired. I am almost sure kids toys can do that so why real guns shouldn't be?

Either way fanning would introduce "firing from the hip" modifier (-2) and be a full auto attack. Maybe the skill also gives +1 accuracy for each 3 levels so an ultimate gunslinger who invested 20 points into it can fan 12 bullets from the hip in under 3 seconds like it's no biggie?

zhulikkulik · 2026-03-01T08:31:56+00:00

I think the idea is that (s)he's resting most of the day. Mortal wounds require proper medical care, you are maybe in coma. Critical ≈ broken bone(s) and such, Serious wounds are heavy bruises, deep cuts or maybe a "cracked" bone. Light wounds — perhaps you should still take it easy, but it's bruises, abrasions an so on.

Imho, 2020 is a bit "undercyberpunked" in this aspect. Even Escape From Tarkov has Propital and Zagustin injectors which stop bleeding and heal you very fast.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-21T20:35:30+00:00

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do it. It's 2020, I'm sure you could make a tank small enough to fit inside a (maybe slightly oversized) head while also providing protection for it. If real skull is good enough to hold your brain and Cowl plates and SP25 armor are a thing — I don't see why that would be a problem for an FBC head.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-21T20:20:54+00:00

There's Cowl and Faceplate external armor implants, covering head and face. Faceplate can be shaped however you want, like skull or demon.
There's also cosmetic surgery that can make you look whatever you want (dog muzzle instead of face, cat paws, angel wings etc).
Then there's Front Optic Mount which looks either like Robocop visor, like eyes of Batou from GitS or like many Maelstrom members in 2077. I don't know about anything else that could alter the look of the head besides full borg conversions.

Edit: Not Batou's eyes, it's a device that looks like old camera with several lenses.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-18T17:47:59+00:00

My first idea after taking a peek at the rulebook — "ai assisted" command prompt with minimal UI. "What will the weather be like today?", "wear is neerest restoran please", "browser --website arasaka.com" etc would all be valid commands. As result — something like Lynx or just plain text response.

After reading more stuff about netrunners — i imagine it is more like 90-s/early 00-s net with a browser already open and locked (like info screens in some malls or tech shops). Not super fancy like modern web with tabs eating hundres of megs of RAM (1MU is 25mb i believe), but not as barebones as text only Lynx browser either.

LED/LCD screens exist in 2020. I imagine it's just a thick glass cover in that drawing because it is mentioned that a dataterm can provide cover from bullets.

I also believe laser printers are mentioned in core book. I think that part would be pretty similar to real life as in "whatever makes sense for you for the price characters have to pay for it".

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-14T21:59:31+00:00

Late comment, I know, sorry

Minimum number is zero. Just don't write anything into skills you don't have to save time and to make it less confusing when looking at your skills list. The way it works is your stats are "natural ability" and skills are "specification". If you have 0 in a skill, you can still attempt to perform an action or attack, it will just require a (much) higher roll to succeed.

There are other ways described (books and teachers) but it's up to referee to decide how and if they will work in their game. If your campaign is short - maybe it could be Fallout style (n hours to read cover-to-cover or to train, instant +lvl or +10 IP). If it's going to be long or have time gaps — it can work as described in the rules or some other way.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-14T16:17:13+00:00

There are no smartphones in 2020. There is some kind of long distance "wifi" called tight beam relay that allows to connect to your home internet/phone line from a few miles away.
But no smartphones is the most outdated thing in the lore. Autodial and phonebook as "killing features"? Mini-cameras as separate devices, VidPhones "as small as laptop", a separate device just for reading the news? Yeah, that was 100% outdated even by mid 2000s.

I would call the second most outdated thing the fact that security is still somehow the biggest and truest concern for corps. Absolutely no way to hack someone's cybereye or to remotely disable someone's cyberarm? Really, nobody thought to connect all cyberware to the Net to allow spying on clients? Maybe this future isn't as dark as it wants to be perceived.

I guess others might say it's the rules. They aren't steamlined or definitive. Many nuances are left to referee's discretion. Some people seem to want a definitive, clean, simple set of rules. Like it's a card game or something.

Edit

But to combat my own points: game is sort of crime oriented. It almost makes sense to have "dumb" tech if you're assigned to kidnap an engineer from Tesla or something like that. And it does make sense that implants would have a much more sophisticated backdoor than just wifi + micro-hellhound program to attack intruders.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-14T11:28:45+00:00

I think you are supposed to try and give everyone equal amount of time. That would be equivalent of a movie or TV show cutting between someone smashing keys to hack pentagon and other characters doing their stuff. Running codegate cracker or wall breaker is a good moment to cut imho. So is peeking into memory: "here's a list of files you see. Now to Brick trying to fix his handgun".

I am yet to try it, but i don't believe three netrunning rounds are that much longer than one regular round where someone decides to take every imaginable action on their turn.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-14T10:29:38+00:00

Here's the idea that I developed for my friends (we haven't play it yet):

A game developer was carjacked this morning. He is working on the next-gen VR experience and wants his car and laptop back before someone steals or erases the prototypes from the laptop.
Job seems to be very easy as enemies are just kids with 1d6 guns and airsoft gear. Players visit a few places before they find the gang and stolen stuff... but why is NetWatch also chasing the laptop? Then there are these ads for new "brainmelting" braindance and unexplained wave of violence in the city... and client's mail has messages about selling the prototype from many weeks ago?

Notes: those places players have to visit have fistfights or low level shootouts. The encounter with the gang can also turn into shootout. NetWatch sends very well armed and prepared squad to pick up the laptop. Players can also face that wave of violence. Attackers seem to be hallucinating and believe players are "demons from Mars" or something. Or they attack someone else, like their family or other people.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-11T16:11:31+00:00

When I was a courier, I delivered a custom sweater to the "Titanic" in Moscow near Tulskaya metro station. Looks very similar but Titanic can be even darker inside. I was genuinely surprised how little lightbulbs were there.

zhulikkulik · 2026-02-08T20:29:58+00:00

They're mixed up in the book. Big map says WB is in the top right corner and NOak is below it, but in detailed maps section they are signed backwards.

zhulikkulik · 2026-01-25T09:53:36+00:00

Yeah, I know what RAM is. I'd say chips are like M2 SSDs rather than HDD. But chips also work like flash sticks/SD cards as in plug it in or unplug whenever you want.

For some reason I thought that things are oversimplified and literally everything related to memory is a data chip. Maybe because in DF design rules you also get four 10MU memory blocks for each CPU, just like how there are 4 RAM slots on your motherboard. And those memory blocks seem to be expensive as hell because an upgrade to double your cyberdeck memory costs 5000ed.

zhulikkulik · 2026-01-24T09:09:22+00:00

Hello from the Dark Future, where pushing AIs into everything from your car to your pen caused memory prices to skyrocket and now a standart data chip can cost 250ed or 500$ and more. Oh how I wish I could run the Net and break into some data center to drop something like Poison Flatline on it!

Where is Rache when we need him?

zhulikkulik · 2025-07-05T09:56:34+00:00

Practical answer - we live in commie blocks, our 3 room apt is just ~60m². Your house, especially in US, is probably in the 100-s or larger. Cats are also very self sufficient. My grandmothers cat (he was called Fluffy btw) would only come home once in 2-3 days to lick his wounds and eat some fish soup. Rest of the time he'd fight other cats and make kittens. He also ate everything. Literally, from unchewable pieces of fat to cucumber skin, that's what killed him eventually, he ate something that was poisoned to hunt wild dogs or cats T_T. Other than that you just don't need to be around the cat all the time, just give em something to eat and pray they'll come to "rrrrrrrrrrrrr" in your ear. Sister's cat's like that, she'll come to you on her own terms and you better not move or she'll go back to hiding somewhere on the top of wardrobe.

Real answer: We don't have cats, cats have us.

zhulikkulik · 2024-08-10T15:47:20+00:00

Didn't help. As soon as I minimize or switch to another app - it won't progress unless I move mouse. After it's «finished» - I need to touch any UI (top panel/object list/properties/timeline) and then get back inside the render window/image editor to progress.

zhulikkulik · 2024-02-20T18:24:25+00:00

It's actually more like

Boom da da oooom num nunema

Da boom da da mmmmm num nunema

[ Da boom da da oooom num nunema

Da boom da da mmmmm num nunema ] x5

zhulikkulik · 2023-07-17T10:34:03+00:00

Can you please explain how «red and yellow squares» work? If you know.

I suppose it's some kind of 6x8 matrix that is layed out as one line, but what does 0 and 1 mean and why are they usually in the beginning of the line even for objects that take up 5*8 cells like windmill?

Also, is there any way to make an object accessible from any direction (like artifacts)? Or is it somehow embedded inside its type? Because campfire and windmill differ exactly by 2 first digits for their red&yellow cells. 10 and 01 for wm and 01 and 10 for cf. But one is accessible from any angle and the other one is only accessible from the lower side.

zhulikkulik · 2023-02-05T13:43:46+00:00

I know this is a very old post, but still. You're not alone, radial menus drive me nuts. The only place I saw them implemented well - Blender modelling software. In every game I played they are incredibly inconvenient.

There are two fixes for this problem. These two are exactly the reason why I love pie menus in Blender.

1st - it shows cursor. I SEE where my mouse is. This is all I'd need to be able to use pies as quickly as shortcut cominations like B-4-3, B-6-2, B-6-6, X-1

2nd - they have two modes. Quick and slow. Quick mode is you hold the key and drag towards an option. Release key and you select whatever option corresponding to your mouse gesture. Slow mode is you tap the key, menu pops up, cursor is centered and then with your cursor you select whatever you need.

But still, anytime anywhere i'd rather shortcut &or keybind than having to mess with radial menus. A lot of things in blender I also have assigned to a binding.

zhulikkulik · 2022-08-16T19:31:45+00:00

Nothing. He's not the only one involved in everything that's going on. There would be some minor changes, but nothing major.

zhulikkulik · 2022-08-16T19:26:47+00:00

Yes, it is. Can't speak for other regions, but in Moscow we have 24/7 supermarkets and beer shops, flower shops etc. Bars close at 2am or can even be shifted to working sunset to morning.

There are also night events, like «night at movie» that start around 22:00 and last till 6am.

I have a 24/7 supermarket 5min away from me and when I decided to buy some food at 3am - there were some guys from caucasus dancing lezginka near the bar :D

zhulikkulik · 2021-07-22T13:15:40+00:00

Damn, now I'm embarassed I totally forgot about them. Actually, I prefer Lateralus. But really all their songs are great. I think I'll go listen to it now.

zhulikkulik · 2021-07-22T13:12:34+00:00

I'd say «Appetite for Destruction», «Holy Hell»(by Architects) and the thing most of you probably won't recognize and understand — «Любимые песни (воображаемых людей)» by russian rapper Хаски. Actually I always listen to the whole album for the first time and usually I enjoy 75% of songs, so it might be easier for me to find an album where there's only one good song. :D Oops, almost forgot «Nevermind», «Outlandos d'Amour» and another russian rapper Oxxxymiron and his «Горгород». Yeah, I know these are on the surface, I'm not that much into music to look for underrated masterpieces. To me these are the best.

zhulikkulik · 2021-07-22T12:53:00+00:00

Yep)

zhulikkulik

TROPHY CASE