The Netrun is Just Another Dungeon (and That's a Good Thing)

I'll admit I have very little experience with cyberpunk themed RPGs. My cousin borrowed Shadowrun from a friend back in the early 90s and we looked through the book. Maybe made characters? And that was it. In the 00s, my buddy Steve had some Forge-inspired story-first games he was developing, and we did some cyberpunk themed games with that. Alex tried to get a RIFTS game going around 10 years ago, which had some cyberpunk elements but was really more superheroic/mecha oriented. More recently, at the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con, I got to play in Keith's Cyberpunk RED game, which was a lot of fun. I think that's about it. 

And yet, while cyberpunk is not my go-to sci fi subgenre, I do really enjoy the themes and aesthetics of it. And I've got some (I think) good ideas for my Missions & Mayhem cyberpunk campaign module, which for now I think will be titled Neon & Nihilism. (Unless I can think of something better in the meantime). 

In M&M's base rules, computer hacking is designed to be relatively quick and painless for the group, as most often only one Hero will be hacking while the others wait around. Make a few quick choices, a few quick rolls, and maybe have to deal with some complications before you succeed or fail. 

For N&N, though, the netrun is probably going to be a fairly important aspect of the campaign. And one complaint I've read about with that in other games is exactly what I was trying to avoid with the main game's hacking rules -- one player taking up a large amount of the game session on the hack/netrun, while the other players sit around twiddling their fingers or scrolling on their phones. 

For N&N, I think I've got a good idea to handle this and get everyone involved. Each Hero (PC) will have a net avatar. This is a secondary character that represents the Hero in cyberspace. The Avatar will have its own class (I'm thinking a Fighter/Thief/Wizard style trio). And the Net will be dungeons. In order to hack into a company's system, the Avatar adventuring party will have to brave the dangers of the dungeon to collect the treasure (whatever info or sabotage they have planned for the netrun). 

The Fighter type class (Cyber-Samurai?) is there to battle security modules and sentient programs to protect the other runners. 

The Thief type class (Shadow Slicer?) is there to retrieve (or plant) whatever needs retrieving, as well as outwitting security programs. 

The Wizard type class (Code Mage?) is there to try and rearrange the virtual environment to the runners' advantage, and will have some limited specials (spells) that can help with combat or infiltration/exfiltration. 

A corporate computer system, internet construct, or AI becomes a series of encounter areas with various challenges meant to keep the party OUT, or eliminate them once they get IN. And somewhere in the maze of programs, data files, subroutines, and whatnot is whatever goal the netrunners are after.  

So pretty much like a D&D dungeon crawl. 

The upside is that the netrun becomes its own adventure, and everyone participates. The downside is that the netrun becomes a dungeon that needs to be prepared, and that players will need two separate character sheets for the campaign. 

I'm also not sure yet how advancement of the meatspace Hero will affect the netrunner Avatar, and vice versa.  

Luckily for me, our modern age isn't that far removed from the typical dystopian cyberpunk setting. Late-stage capitalist megacorps, invasive surveillance tech, government controlled by the oligarchs, and the masses mostly sheep willing to stare at their screens all day waiting for the next dopamine hit. So I won't need to add a lot to the meatspace side of the rules (maybe some replicants, a few gene-splice mods, some cyberware, a bit more near-future tech). M&M can already handle a lot of that. Most of the focus of the book can be on the netrun aspect of the campaign.