In the spring of 2019, I was running Cyberpunk 2020 for my friends. In the spring of 2023, I translated, remastered and digitized them for an assignment. Due to it being part of the assignment, it also includes basic and simplified cyberpunk 2020 ruleset. The rules set of Cyberpunk 2020 are not owned by me and belong to their rightful owners. Scenarios were written for Cyberpunk 2020 but should be compatible with Cyberpunk RED after a few tweaks to statistics and payouts. I wrote those scenarios for a group without Netrunner, because they often slowed down the game.
These scenarios were one of the first I have ever written. While translating I upgraded them and smoothed out some rough edges. Nonetheless, the core of the scenarios stayed the same. The scenarios focus on tasks and compilation of them rather than the overarching plot. There is some overarching plot that I added when I was rewriting those. There are four of around 10 scenarios, and some of them had additional plot, but not much more.
The design is quite simple; players' characters are a group of mercenaries hired to complete certain tasks. Tasks themselves are quite simple; for example, in the first scenario, they are asked to recover weapons from the corps' warehouse in the docks. But of course, there are complications: how to enter, how to get out. These scenarios focus on the players' character actions and how they solved problems. This led to some memorable moments during the sessions when plans failed in unsuspected(or suspected) ways. The simplicity of those scenarios put more impact on the players' actions and approach. I thought of those scenarios as corridors wide enough that the players cannot see the walls. So the question changes from can we do that to how do we do that. The rest is left up to the GM. This design is inspired by immersive sims like Pray(2017).
The problem with it there is a problem with it, as you might have seen coming. When developing this, I wasn’t thinking about player characters; I was thinking about the players. To clarify, I was not thinking in terms of Tomb of Horrors, where Gary Gygax made a dungeon for the players. Rather, I was thinking like they were J.C. Denton from Deus Ex with some individual flair. It wasn’t a problem at first, but with a lack of or little to no overarching plot, it quickly became stale for the players. Their characters had little character development throughout the game. This was helped by the fact that, as I ran this, there was no stable cast of characters for each session. So one session could have four people, and the next one only three, and only two of them were in both sessions. This was possible because each session was one scenario and was treated as a separate adventure. Like a monster of the week style TV series. Which worked great for scheduling conflicts, but gave problems for character development. The scenarios, because and in spite of that, were not written with certain players' characters in mind. There are cool moments where the scenario makes room for the player character to use certain skills or abilities. I prefer situations where players need to adapt to get out of certain situations, and make games more interesting.
But there is one cool aspect of the scenario. Which is the penthouse that player characters can gain as a base of operations. This allows them to upgrade and change the rooms for either what they want or for one of the options prepared by the scenario. If they have enough money, that is. While the layout is inspired by Saints Row: The Third penthouse, what the players do with it is entirely up to them. This is the aspect I wish had more impact on the scenario, and be more then just a backdrop for the start of a new task. Imagine players getting used to it and being attacked in it, or there being invisible breaking while they were gone, or even being welcomed by old locators of the place. Maybe I will return to these possibilities one day.
This scenario is available to download, with pre-made player characters also available for download.