What are the Differences between High-Fantasy and Futuristic/Cyberpunk Games?

[tylermalan]

I've been really interested in running a Cyberpunk campaign ever since I read Neuromancer (and have been reading other cyberpunk books since then), and I've been slowly forming a basis for a Cyberpunk campaign that I will eventually run. However, I've never run anything other than D&D, and its been pretty standard stuff. I've never run games or played in any settings other than the core setting, and I've never run a game using d20 Modern rules, though I've played in a d20 Modern game.

All that being said, what I'm wondering is this: What do I have to "watch out" for when running a modern/futuristic game?

To clarify what I mean, I'm talking about things like scrying, and how it impacts a game dramatically. I'm talking about wizards focused around mind-affecting magic, and how that changes a great many encounters. I'm talking about having players that want to play monster races, and how that sort-of changes the dynamic of the group and how the rest of the world reacts to them.

So are there any "trouble areas" that are a part of futuristic settings? Guns? Power level balance issues? Vehicles? How vehicles affect travel time? Money and wealth? Accessibility of information? Anything else?

I'm looking for responses from both sides of the spectrum, as well. As DMs, what did your players do that left you dumbfounded? As players, have you ever done anything that seemed way out there, within the confines of the rules?

I'm also looking for rules-type trouble areas, and roleplaying/setting-type trouble areas.

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[Clueless]

Pick your tone early.
That's the biggest and most important thing to do, critically important. Your team can be Ocean's 11 - or they can be Reservoir Dogs. Make sure your *players* are all on the same page or you'll have what my SR games have had: 1 memory wiped corporate enforcer dumped in the middle of Tacoma and 1 druggie drug dealer abandoned in the middle of the astral plane to *walk* to Washington DC to leave via rift - both cases by their own teams. Decide the playing style you want. Decide how vicious your underworld will be. Decide if everyone keeps it 'professional and clean' or if they're *all* going to betray each other at the first chance.

 

[Clueless]

I left my character at home.
Your next biggest issue is with 'get away drivers' and with 'hackers' as an archetype. Neither of these archetypes are exactly designed to get in the thick of things if they do their jobs right. So make sure they have to - the hacker has to get inside the facility to access a closed circuit. Or the rigger has drones he uses but has to go inside because the facility is shielded against incoming and outgoing signals... use what you know of real life tactics and security - and encourage your players to do the same. They'll figure out the holes in what you set up.

 

[Clueless]

Surprise!!
Ambushes are *deadly*. Period. End of discussion. I've never seen bad guys go down faster. I've never seen players go down faster later in the game when the 'favor' was returned. Be careful not to party wipe. It is easy in a DnD game to keep your party at 'half hitpoints' to amplify the feeling of threat and danger. It's a heck of a lot harder to do that in a cyberpunk game.

 

[tylermalan]

Pick your tone early.
That's the biggest and most important thing to do, critically important. Your team can be Ocean's 11 - or they can be Reservoir Dogs. Make sure your *players* are all on the same page or you'll have what my SR games have had: 1 memory wiped corporate enforcer dumped in the middle of Tacoma and 1 druggie drug dealer abandoned in the middle of the astral plane to *walk* to Washington DC to leave via rift - both cases by their own teams. Decide the playing style you want. Decide how vicious your underworld will be. Decide if everyone keeps it 'professional and clean' or if they're *all* going to betray each other at the first chance.

What do you suggest for ease of use? Playability?

 

[tylermalan]

Surprise!!
Ambushes are *deadly*. Period. End of discussion. I've never seen bad guys go down faster. I've never seen players go down faster later in the game when the 'favor' was returned. Be careful not to party wipe. It is easy in a DnD game to keep your party at 'half hitpoints' to amplify the feeling of threat and danger. It's a heck of a lot harder to do that in a cyberpunk game.

Why is that? Guns? Worse?

 

[Clueless]

What do you suggest for ease of use? Playability?

Hm. That almost depends on the tone you pick and the players you have.

GURPS is a good general system, but you can die *fast* in that one b/c of the damage your weapons do. On the plus side - once you teach your group GURPS, they'll be set for anything from Shadowrun near future to Traveller space games. This is a *very* handy advantage, esp. with time travel. GURPS is also built rather handily around a perfect bell curve - which will make it much easier for you to predict player success rates.

I'm not fond of percentage systems like Call of Cthulhu b/c it can be hard to make any true headway in your skills, and there's the risk of them capping out. Your mileage may vary - you may need to tweak the points you give your players to start their characters with.

I don't recommend Palladium. Balance issues. Especially with Rifts. Especially with South America source books.

Abberant is ok, has some odd ball and abusable rules. Be careful with power gamers. Be very careful with the following powers: clone, matter control, momentum control.

Mage/Vampire/and that ilk, again, ok for the ruleset but the setting is so entwined with the rules that they can be tricky to separate if you need to.

Shadowrun is my favoured setting and system (I'm a SR 3rd ed sort of girl). I find once you have a handle on it - it has a brisk feel and about the right risk of injury to payoff for my play style. I'll freely dump rules I don't care for or am fuzzy on. Decking for example - I'll either use an Excel sheet that does the target calculations for me - or if my player is a programmer like myself - we'll go 'old school' and plan our attacks based off of actual computer security issues. I prefer 2nd or 3rd ed SR over 4th b/c I feel 4th is just a thinly veiled White Wolf system with d6s. But then again I never let my groups get so out of hand that I ran into the powergaming 3rd is supposedly vulnerable to.

I've not done a lot with the Cyberpunk system but I suspect it has a higher damage risk than SR, and doesn't have the possibility of magic - or as I renamed it with SR once 'psionics' for an Alien game.

I could probably shoehorn just about any setting into a good game. But then I'm *very* fond of the understanding that the GM is the ultimate one in control of what the players are allowed to do - and players who understand the GM exercises that power only to preserve the healthy of the game... are even better in my book. It means that you can use rule 0 when you need to.

 

[Clueless]

Why is that? Guns? Worse?

Pretty much. Most systems amplify the damage of guns, grenades and rockets like that. Save for d20 modern. That's not as vulnerable to this - but then again, that sort of thing where someone at high level can take three million shots to die - means that a single blow is less of a risk. It sort of lessens the impact of a fight where getting shot once or twice *matters*. The other systems don't scale your HP. So you *can* be an expert and get taken out by the lucky shot punk in a club.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Hm. That almost depends on the tone you pick and the players you have.

GURPS is a good general system, but you can die *fast* in that one b/c of the damage your weapons do. On the plus side - once you teach your group GURPS, they'll be set for anything from Shadowrun near future to Traveller space games. This is a *very* handy advantage, esp. with time travel. GURPS is also built rather handily around a perfect bell curve - which will make it much easier for you to predict player success rates.

Actually, it shouldn't be underestimated how hard it can be to kill a character with high Health and/or a few levels of "Hard to Kill" - once they can survive their "death" rolls with a 13 or less on 3d6, the odds are that you need to inflict six times their base hit points in damage until they go down.

Still, three hits with a standard, modern rifle will suffice for unarmored people unless they are extraordinarily tough. Military weaponry will kill people even faster - but then again, that's their point.

And I echo the GURPS recommendation. It is also entirely possible to play this game in a cinematic mode merely by giving the characters far more character points than normal humans. These will be significantly tougher, especially if you allow them to purchase advantages that aren't appropriate for ordinary humans - you can justify these as cyberware, superior genetics, or whatever else you can come up with.

 

[Clueless]

Feng Shui would also work well for a very cinematic effect. It's another very fast and fun sort of system. Not good if you're looking for gritty realism, but great if you want to be too busy kicking a** to bother to take names.

And I'm sorta mean in those regards with GURPS - I mean yeah - the actual damage to kill someone is considerably more than needed to knock them out. So they'll make their death checks b/c they've got hard to kill etc. But if you're unconscious at the feet of those who want to kill you? Sorry - I can't really find a good reason why you'll survive the headshot. Like I said - I can be mean. The biggest trick I've seen with GURPS is - if you do get hit, it *will* hurt. Which admittedly, is how it is in real life. It forces player into intellegent use of cover.

Another system to touch on, Serenity, which my current group has been playing. Like many systems where you take two dice, roll them, add them together to hit a target number - you're in a feast or famine situation - they dice will be with you, or against you, rarely in the middle. The statistical curves just aren't as predictable as I'd like when it's two differntly sized dice - I have the 'unlucky dice' curse, so I have to actually watch out for such things. That's the only thing I find wrong with it though, so it's worth looking into as well.