Don't Roll a One

[ENCRYPTED MSG // TRACELESS NODE // BAMA/ΔNET.SHADE.HALO]
From: Memfhiz
subject: Ghost in virtual seconds.
I need operators. Short-burn types. Runners who can handle CBR+PNK-class heat and think sideways when the grid collapses. We’re stress-testing a blacksite dice system — MAD-DICE.COM — and you’re invited to help put it through the paces. Invited, because each of you know what you owe me.

We’re running a rotating crew job to extract 15 high value vehicles from the BAMA sprawl.
Each ride is wired, warded, or Loa-watched. Some don’t want to be rescued.
Each night we boost one.

Jump in for a night, return for another.
The List is long. And the gods are watching.

Seat’s yours if you reply.

 Tell no one who sent you.
And what you owe me will be nulled.

—Mfz

I Thought BAMA Meant Alabama

MadJay was running a short series of CBR+PNK sessions to test out his in-development online dice roller and I was lucky to get in on the action alongside some familiar faces from the IGRC. Being dissatisfied with existing tools and deciding to roll your own is a feeling I deeply empathize with.

Jay was running in William Gibson’s Sprawl, the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis. Two players returned from his first session while I made “Downtown”, a pilot-turned-racecar-driver-turned-runner. He talked slow and drove fast, and I affected a drawl because I misread “BAMA” as Alabama.

The other runners were:

• Linnaeus, who also went by Garrison and later on by Dryer because he apparently kept accumulating enemies.
• Rick Dallas. If you accept that “Rick Dallas” is a verb, you know everything you need to know about Rick Dallas.

CBR+PNK strips Forged in the Dark character creation down even more – no contacts, vices, or backgrounds. No crew creation or faction standings to discuss. It sands down a lot of the handles for long-term play in favor of fast one-shots. In place of special abilities are augmentations, because it’s cyberpunk. They are more freeform vectors for the usual FitD rules on special armor, discounts on pushing yourself, and so on. A lot of the fun comes from bullshitting some Gibsonian-sounding marketspeak. For example, Downtown was outfitted with a “Recaro Daytona-X Linear Frame (Premium Edition)”.

Recap

Downtown, Rick, and Linnaeus were part of a distributed crew hired to steal 15 vehicles in the style of Gone in 60 Seconds. Our target this session was “The Widowmaker”, a Tessier-Ashpool hypercar on display at a casino arcology. Very fancy.

We rode a VIP helo in with some of Linnaeus’ contacts, vaguely planning to schmooze our way into the vehicle via finding and influencing the owner. Unfortunately this was not to be, because Linnaeus had drawn the attention of the very dangerous and very present Disciples of Pain.

Look, it was all going fine until one of these Disciples pulled a gun on Downtown in an elevator.

It’s Just What I Wanted

I don’t even think we knew the Disciples of Pain (DoP) were also there for the car at that point. When Pascal, one of the DoP’s heavies, drew on Downtown he took the guy’s gun away.

Pascal pulled a knife instead.

My honor as a player of TTRPGs and a lover of action movies demanded that Downtown strip the gun and pull his own knife. It would have been better if Downtown had any dice in Close Combat, but I squeaked through with a six by burning a lot of stress.

Grandest Theft Auto

Things escalated quickly after that. The DoP made it to the car with the showrunner, Mimi, in tow. They got her to open the hypercar just as Rick Dallas ambushed the DoP leader. Mimi, Rick, and Downtown got into the car. The DoP had triggered the fire suppression system for the showcase floor. Linnaeus, who had changed aliases twice from Garrison to Dryer, was baiting the other Disciples into the halon gas.

Cars Don’t Fly, Dom Downtown

You don’t park a hypercar at the top of a skyscraper and NOT jump it out a window. As Downtown, Rick, and Mimi plummeted, we puppeted the VIP helo we rode in on using a stealth drone planted via flashback. The chopper caught the car but couldn’t slow us in time – we were too heavy!

Downtown jumped out and landed in a pool, using the last of his stress to reduce certain death to grievous harm.

We’d done it! We had stolen a car, made powerful enemies, and risked our lives for an unknown handler for unknown reasons – just another day in the Sprawl.

Rough Edges and the Cost of Specialization

CBR+PNK makes it clear that it is about runners on their last job. It’s stripped down for one-shots and it’s made some tradeoffs. We were noticing these design choices in play, though, and if you’re thinking about using CBR+PNK for longer play or running it for FitD veterans, consider these potential pitfalls and how you might mitigate them:

Context

I think CBR+PNK is best served by a FitD veteran at the helm. It’s a very sparse text and implicitly assumes familiarity with Blades in the Dark or other similar games. Shameless shout out to my own Glow in the Dark, in which I state that you really do need Blades first.

Threat is Secretly Position

The thing we struggled with the most is probably the easiest to rectify. Ironically, as seasoned Blades in the Dark players I think we were all caught off guard by the absence of Position during action rolls. It’s been replaced by a numeric Threat, except after the game (and after rereading several posts) I’ve come to the conclusion that you can use Threat just like Position. Threat’s not established as part of CBR+PNK’s engagement roll analogue, so I think we started off on our back feet, looking for differences where there are none.

1 Shot, 0 XP

As a one-shot game, CBR+PNK gives no fucks about XP. It makes sense – strip all those rules out and discard them like back seats from a street racer.

The price you pay, however, is that you now have less incentive to chase risk. Vanilla Blades in the Dark/FitD weaves in little carrots when you opt for the hard choices, like Desperate XP or playing towards your characters Traumas. Without widgets like these, you’re only relying on player motivation to drive these runners like they’re stolen. For the right table it’s obviously not a problem, but it is something to keep in mind.

A Plan Is Just a List of Things That Don’t Happen

Flashbacks are an amazing innovation – when you remember that they’re an option! For some reason, every group I’ve played in keeps forgetting to use flashbacks to their full potential, but CBR+PNK makes a subtle change that disincentivizes flashbacks.

In vanilla FitD, the minimum cost for flashbacks is zero stress. CBR+PNK flashbacks cost a minimum of one stress. It doesn’t sound that bad on paper, and might even come from a well-intentioned place. Perhaps it’s meant to ensure flashbacks aren’t introduced unless they’re “worth it”, but from my perspective it creates another hurdle to balk at. You don’t have a ton of stress to burn in CBR+PNK, and despite it presenting as a game where you play to find out, where improvisation > prep, and where play can be fast and loose, it’ll promote players trying to plan things to avoid that flashback tax.

Parallel Evolution

Nothing is original, as Jim Jarmusch said. When inspiration strikes as I work on Outlaw Country, I take note if I recognize where it came from. CBR+PNK caught me off guard though – it combines Approaches and Skills and even uses Threat and Effect! Either CBR+PNK wormed its way into my subconscious several years ago or (more likely) we both get our shit from the same supplier. I suppose it’s time to add a mohawk and a wheelchair.

But who cares what I think – go play CBR+PNK, because games are Good, Actually. Go make something, volunteer where you can, touch grass, be excellent to each other, all that shit.