Emulating the rules, but which system?

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It gets complicated because as soon as you add in the player's manual skills, wheither with mouse or controller, it throws your percentages and success ratios off. And then you have to throw in tricks like crosshair size or weapon responsiveness or what have you. No matter what you do, though, it struggles with the basic gap between the character's skills and the players.

And that's a challenge.

Well, it's the inverse of the problem pnp games face, in that it is virtually impossible to run your character as not having the knowledge you yourself posses. I mean its funny how the illiterate barbarian suddenly gets real good at math when its time to divvy up loot....

And its improtant to allow for this stuff, because in a pnp game, you can be clever. It means in a video game, you can feel like you are part of the action. The only other way to do it is with turn based action.... and as I said, that would pretty much be a deal breaker... I want to be the one shooting, I want my gun fights to feel different, unique, fast paced, and desperate... and no turn based combat in the world allows for that... in fact, turn based combat pretty much misses the point of a video game as I have said. You have turn based in a tabletop because otherwise its just people yelling at the gm, which no one could handle... the video game handles it all just fine.

A bullet spread/accuracy mechanic handles the skill emulation just fine...

And aw.... it was inevitable I guess due to lack of exposure, but IU is falling behind... makes me sad.
 
One of the best things about the Cyberpunk tabletop game was its rules system.

The question is this... which rules version do you think would best serve Cyberpunk 2077... both the video game and the upcoming PNP products?

Which set of rules do you believe best represent the freedom, hard core combat with consequences, and dynamic fluidity of the Cyberpunk world, and its visions?
Well... I've never played Cyberpunk PnP - at least I don't remember if I played a game at a convention or something, or any PnP / Tabletop in 20 years, but I was a regular AD&D / Paranoia / MERP / W40k / others player in the 80's, and I've been reading up on CP2020 and tried to imagine how a game night would pan out, so I feel informed - just enough - to vote, and I cast for Interlock Unlimited.

I have heard reports that 2020's rules are good, I personally like the sound of the combat described in Friday Night Firefight, and its deadliness is somehow familiar. But its obvious to anyone there's a general consensus that the rules need changed, after all there was v3, whose rulebook I got the other day and although I havent read it in detail I found things in it that put me off, that felt like they were straying from the path laid down by the 2020 rulebook (which is a great read altogether!).

Change is a good thing, we should welcome it, and if 2077 is basing itself on 2020 not 203X then the original motivation behind the creation of v3 rules is presumably returned also. So I'm for a change up, and Wisdom000's obvious passion for the game and the IU rules (which for an unofficial set polling neck in neck with the official is impressive) causes me to trust in his experience, since I have none of my own. :p

Final word is Pondsmiths ofc, but there's wisdom in listening to players feedback, especially gathered over such a long period.


I'd like to hope that CDPR tries to emulate a system, but I've noticed developers tend to reinvent the wheel when they transfer to their medium. It always reminded me of the similar argument about movies and books. An argument that, although not without merit, Harry Potter, LotR and Twilight have emphatically demonstrated the author knew best.
Its way too early to make any assumptions about how the game will play, but unless they make a game ala Neverwinter Nights, party based, with profuse stats, and yes turn-based & "sticky targeting", then the games not really going to be reminiscent of a Friday night firefight, is it? Some translation is necessary moving to a completely different medium & context. My memories of the fun had during PnP game nights were more to do with the people involved - they each contributed more, especially the quality of the Games Master - than the actual setting & ruleset. The computer is totally different, increasingly so as average imagination levels fall with the constant influx of new young gamers, fed on the rich visual diet they now understandably demand. Dunno about you, but there were 3 TV channels most of my childhood, no home movies, and the general policy of parents who grew up without TV was to limit the children's time at it, expecting them to go out and find their own amusement.

Point is, 2077 is going to be different from a PnP session, it has to be for many reasons, not least the developers desire to do something fresh - for their own sanity and job satisfaction, a motivation I personally won't fault. But CDPR are the best hands your beloved game could be in, imho.

As much as people knock Bethesda around here (not entirely unfairly...), I think that they got shooting mechanics between your skill and V.A.T.S. pretty good.
Indeed, I liked the VATS system myself, and it was a legacy from the earlier games they conscientiously kept deserving respect, and as a whole the system was an effective way of hiding the fact that there are still numbers behind the game mechanics.

Nothing better than the mouse/keyboard combo.
I'm a PC only player, I have a controller that I rarely use - only if a game is clearly more fun with one do I use it, but I find the vast majority of what I play isn't. I don't like the targeting help you usually get, I much prefer the precision of the mouse, and the layout of the keyboard, but then I can still twitch like a 25 year old. :p

If thats what you dig, then thats cool... but I hear a lot of people complaining about manual shooting, or "twitch combat" as the like to call it... which to me is a must have...
I don't quite understand you here, to my mind the controller reduces the amount of hand-eye coordination required to play a game, while the mouse increases speed, maneuverability, all round vision, and demands a satisfying level of precision. But each to their own !

Well, it's the inverse of the problem pnp games face, in that it is virtually impossible to run your character as not having the knowledge you yourself posses. I mean its funny how the illiterate barbarian suddenly gets real good at math when its time to divvy up loot....
Aye, its difficult to curtail your own metagaming, but everything i'm hearing about CDPRs current aspirations indicates they are well aware that a game must help you in this regard by enforcing some rules & limitations. Put simply: I doubt you'll be able to do everything in one playthrough no matter your knowledge, unlike say Fallout 3, where you could do & be everything first game out of the box (in my opinion that fact meant F3 was an adventure game, not an RPG).

One of the reasons I still remember Paranoia fondly... a night of that was unpredictable anarchic fun which even encouraged frequent dismantling of the fourth wall.

And its improtant to allow for this stuff, because in a pnp game, you can be clever. It means in a video game, you can feel like you are part of the action. The only other way to do it is with turn based action.... and as I said, that would pretty much be a deal breaker... I want to be the one shooting, I want my gun fights to feel different, unique, fast paced, and desperate... and no turn based combat in the world allows for that... in fact, turn based combat pretty much misses the point of a video game as I have said. You have turn based in a tabletop because otherwise its just people yelling at the gm, which no one could handle... the video game handles it all just fine.
Yeh I know this argument and it seems to be the prevailing one currently, but I don't agree. I love turn based games, heck Ive loved all game systems at one time or another & don't believe any of them are "wrong", plus I want some variety in my games. They have been overused perhaps, in need of a new interpretation, but a clever developer will blow your unsuspecting mind one day, i'll bet. :rolleyes:

And aw.... it was inevitable I guess due to lack of exposure, but IU is falling behind... makes me sad.
You could try expanding on the essential rule differences a bit, because its not as clear as it could be to the newbie. Oh and btw, I noticed your subliminal blipvert / fnord in italicising the IU option, devious ! :rolleyes:

TL;DR:
“Charitably...I think...sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And, in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change.”
- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake
 
Well... I've never played Cyberpunk PnP - at least I don't remember if I played a game at a convention or something, or any PnP / Tabletop in 20 years, but I was a regular AD&D / Paranoia / MERP / W40k / others player in the 80's, and I've been reading up on CP2020 and tried to imagine how a game night would pan out, so I feel informed - just enough - to vote, and I cast for Interlock Unlimited.

I have heard reports that 2020's rules are good, I personally like the sound of the combat described in Friday Night Firefight, and its deadliness is somehow familiar. But its obvious to anyone there's a general consensus that the rules need changed, after all there was v3, whose rulebook I got the other day and although I havent read it in detail I found things in it that put me off, that felt like they were straying from the path laid down by the 2020 rulebook (which is a great read altogether!).

Change is a good thing, we should welcome it, and if 2077 is basing itself on 2020 not 203X then the original motivation behind the creation of v3 rules is presumably returned also. So I'm for a change up, and Wisdom000's obvious passion for the game and the IU rules (which for an unofficial set polling neck in neck with the official is impressive) causes me to trust in his experience, since I have none of my own. :p

Final word is Pondsmiths ofc, but there's wisdom in listening to players feedback, especially gathered over such a long period.


Wow.... thank you....
 
I love the 2020 rules enough to make out with them, but the Interlock Unlimited stuff is awesome. As much as Cyberpunk is a great setting, the IU material just shows how versatile the system was for running just about anything under the sun. I've Kickstarted the Fate Core and Dungeon World stuff, and as much as those are good systems, I inevitably come back to Interlock. Of course, it helps that I work for a printing company, and I printed all of my group up a copy of IU. Much better in a tangible book.

If RTal doesn't want to do anything with IU, it really needs to see a print run. I'm not sure what the licensing costs would be on that, but I'd yell a hearty "Shut up and take my money!" if anyone tried to do it. (Cough, DataFortress, cough.)
 
I love the 2020 rules enough to make out with them, but the Interlock Unlimited stuff is awesome. As much as Cyberpunk is a great setting, the IU material just shows how versatile the system was for running just about anything under the sun. I've Kickstarted the Fate Core and Dungeon World stuff, and as much as those are good systems, I inevitably come back to Interlock. Of course, it helps that I work for a printing company, and I printed all of my group up a copy of IU. Much better in a tangible book.

If RTal doesn't want to do anything with IU, it really needs to see a print run. I'm not sure what the licensing costs would be on that, but I'd yell a hearty "Shut up and take my money!" if anyone tried to do it. (Cough, DataFortress, cough.)

I agree. I have played 2013, 2020 an UI. I was so excited when v3 was coming out and was very dis-appointed in it, when it got here.
We played 2020 for a straight 4.5 years with a lot of the tweaks and additions that became UI shortly after that.

We even experimented with creating a fantasy version of UI rules, because we like the rules so much, but we never quite finished them.

We have just started another Cyberpunk campaign (rolled up characters last night), and we went right to the UI rules. They are what Interlock should be.

On a side note, the data fortress seems to be down. I went to get the latest revisions last night and cant get to any of the files. What's up, Wisdom?
 
Thanks Thorn, thanks Tycho... means a lot that you guys enjoy it.

We are working on fantasy rules right now... well Seth is, with me providing some input along the way... looks great so far.

As for the file project, it and the forums are on separate hosts than the main site, which is just crap. I would have moved it all but apparently the DF2020 host doesn't support what I need for the file project or the forum, so I am looking into other options. If you need anything, send me an-mail and let mw knoe which files you are looking for.
 
Thanks Thorn, thanks Tycho... means a lot that you guys enjoy it.

We are working on fantasy rules right now... well Seth is, with me providing some input along the way... looks great so far.

That's fantastic I would be glad to help you test it out!

As for the file project, it and the forums are on separate hosts than the main site, which is just crap. I would have moved it all but apparently the DF2020 host doesn't support what I need for the file project or the forum, so I am looking into other options. If you need anything, send me an-mail and let mw knoe which files you are looking for.

Thanks! Email through this forum has been sent!
 
Ah. I got a bunch but I think I used the method Wisdom has on the main page. Not the Files section.
 
Sorry Tycho, the DF 2020 File project is up and down like a yo-yo, but the relevant IU files are available via link on the front page of Datafortress 2020. I know you said they don't work for you, but I have to believe that is something on your end, as they work fine for me on 2 separate computers, and I called and had a friend dl em, worked fine for him as well...
 
My webhost was foolish enough to give me unlimited bandwidth and storage. If you need somewhere to store anything, let me know.
 
While personally I have not experienced any of the systems mentioned above, I've had the pleasure of playing several different systems: d20 which has become a core of D&D by wizards of the coast, d10 which is common in WoD by White Wolf (Which sounds quite similar to what you've described) and even d6 funkiness. While we can argue endlessly which system and/or edition was superior to another all of it is largely irrelevant when you think about it from TT/PnP to cRPG transition perspective

The moment you step away from turn based dice rolling to real time player controlled game there are "action skills" that needs to be performed. There is a big difference in presentation between the two and the things that could and are normally abstracted during play. Where do you draw the line between player skill and character skill and what do you make of "Is it fun?" question. Do you want to press "E" and have your character perform a complex action or do you want to do it yourself? You no longer can roll dice and say that you character has succeeded or failed may it be noticed something, successfully dodged out of the way, hid behind a crate, hit the target or jumped over a gap, also what do we do about mini games that have become common practices in the industry for hacking, pick locking, repairing etc ?

While it s debatable which implementation was more successful in my opinion none of them have perfected the formula. Every one of us is familiar with immersion breaking absurdities that were put in place to work out solution: like high lighted items, "mystically" knowing exactly where to find the thing you just heard about a second ago, invulnerability or lack of control at certain times (Like for examples during VATS sequence you take only 10% of damage or worse you take normal damage during in engine cut-scene with no control of your character, or my pet peeve "teleportation" after cut scene *Shakes fist* I didn't spend ten minutes crawling behind covers to be put in the open, damn you Mass Effect!), pressing crouch and all of a sudden becoming nay invisible,invisible wall near edges and many more that you can easily think of yourselves.. I'll admit that several of the issues I've mentioned have little to do with player VS character issue but they are still very true for adjusting table top PnP game for GM/DM- less computer roleplaying game.

For these reasons I strongly believe that neither of the already existing system ,no matter how good they are, could be used and thus devs do need to reinvent the wheel for their game.
 
...what what?

Well, ah, CDPR has said that although they plan to make some video-game specific adaptations, they will be using the PnP ruleset. So, yeah, no wheel reinvention necessary.

Much of the reason Cyberpunk attracted them - and us - is the very bloody, no-increasing-HP, headshots kill, you bleed out in seconds or minutes, drugs are addictive, etc etc ruleset.

Things like skillmaxes of 10 being about 1/3 of a formula balancing skills, stats and luck, with gear or adverse conditions thrown in.

Things like Roles being determiners of proficiency sets, while not being too hidebound or overpowered, ( Solos in combat excepted), which is why your MedTech really can be an ace driver. IU does this better, btw.

System tidbits like cyberware reducing the stat your skills such as Human Perception are based on. The more of a borg you are, the harder it is to tell when people are lying to you. Unless you get some cyber to compensate. But then the cyber pushes you further down, and so on..

Yeah, it's a good thing they aren't planning to reinvent any wheels. Or systems. Would screw with the whole game, regardless of the medium you put it in.
 
I hear what you are saying and I think that we are talking of different things.

To make things clear, obviously it is easier to make cyberpunk game than witcher game, why? Cause you have a rule system rather than just a setting, same could be told about Vampire game should they decide to make it after they are done with Cyberpunk 2077. Any rule system is easier to adapt video game than no rules at all.

To iterate the point, CDPR already have stated that they are aware of player VS character issue and that is why they are introducing the changes to shooting mechanics. I could go and find that blog post if you are interested.

I raised the question what else and how much of it needs to be modified to fit a video game. Rule set works only because there is an entity GM/DM observes at all times and makes sure that rules are applied and adapted when and however it is necessary. You simply can not do that in a computer game therefor work arounds need to be invented. Or as I've previously called it "they need to reinvent the wheel"
 
...what what?

Well, ah, CDPR has said that although they plan to make some video-game specific adaptations, they will be using the PnP ruleset. So, yeah, no wheel reinvention necessary.

Much of the reason Cyberpunk attracted them - and us - is the very bloody, no-increasing-HP, headshots kill, you bleed out in seconds or minutes, drugs are addictive, etc etc ruleset.

Things like skillmaxes of 10 being about 1/3 of a formula balancing skills, stats and luck, with gear or adverse conditions thrown in.

Things like Roles being determiners of proficiency sets, while not being too hidebound or overpowered, ( Solos in combat excepted), which is why your MedTech really can be an ace driver. IU does this better, btw.

System tidbits like cyberware reducing the stat your skills such as Human Perception are based on. The more of a borg you are, the harder it is to tell when people are lying to you. Unless you get some cyber to compensate. But then the cyber pushes you further down, and so on..

Yeah, it's a good thing they aren't planning to reinvent any wheels. Or systems. Would screw with the whole game, regardless of the medium you put it in.


Amen to this... I am however sorry to see the poll gone, I would very much have liked to have seen the results just before the change over..
 
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