Well Chooms, we meet again for the final time in this campaign. There are times you realise it is a great place to stop a campaign. But more of that later. Let’s get back to the action in the aftermath of capturing the cargo ship and negotiating a very profitable deal.
It’s at this point I should say our new player decided he couldn’t keep up the travel commitment to the group so would bow out. That gave the GM something to think about for his character exit especially as we knew he had his links to a pirate gang. I wonder if that would become relevant later on?
So, there we were on board the ship with the AI Crimson Star / Lethal One. Luna Eleven arrived to prep her gig and my edgerunner team did the meet and greet whilst our hired muscle took on the security. We also had three Trauma team AVs and crews on standby. The gig was a sell-out; I mean if you had the eddies why wouldn’t you want to experience the once in a lifetime show. We of course had the run of the place so best seats in the house.
We found a sleezy and untrustworthy media guy lurking where he shouldn’t. We couldn’t allow it as this would open the door to too many secrets coming out about the ship and its operations, so let’s just say he disappeared.
Then we captured another threat. This time some guy who’d been paid five thousand eddies to hack into the live feed for fun. Thankfully, we were operating a delayed feed to the wider public, so we minimised the trouble and agreed a deal. Afterall, he wasn’t malicious and it would be more than his job’s worth to blag about what went on, so we placed him under arrest in a locked room and allowed him to enjoy the concert from a feed. Naturally we charged him for it; but hey he lived.
The rest of the gig went down well and roll forward to the morning we were relaxing. Naturally as experienced players, we couldn’t allow ourselves the luxury of relaxing, so we checked for incoming hostiles.
We decided to see how safe we were presuming that with an absent nomad and the ship still needing an overhaul, we were vulnerable. We spotted an incoming force of dirigibles and AVs so set about preparing a defence. Landing would be a problem for them as we still had our mercenaries, but still, this could turn costly.
As we order Crimson to open fire we quickly realised someone had sabotaged the surface-to-air missile system. I ordered the system to stop targeting and waited for the flyers to get into close range then let fire a few missiles that hopefully would hit something before their targeting systems could malfunction. It partially worked and we took out one of them.
As they closed in our erstwhile nomad appeared threatening Luna who had appeared on deck. He threatened to kill her if we didn’t hand over the ship, but with our solo Menendez already charging him, Quack and I both flatly said no and I advised him Militech had already dispatched a recovery force and whether he liked it or not if they met resistance, we could all be toast, so best he gave up and flee if he could. He hesitated, Quack fired, Menendez reached him and he was unceremoniously put out of commission.
Then the pirates tried to land. There was a lot of gunfire. My covert ops gal Dice charged one trying to board and hurled them both of the side of the ship, a bit careless, but it was stylish, I’ll give her that. Thankfully, as one of the senior mercenaries Snake went after her, the Trauma team dispatched one of their AVs to pick her up and attempted to revive her, which thankfully they did. Meanwhile, the firefight reached the point where the pirates couldn’t get aboard and they had lost several craft so they bailed, leaving us to pick up the pieces. Dice was saved but would need serious treatment and thankfully Spice had kept her head down somewhere.
In the cooldown time, the Militech force arrived and took over the defence. Meanwhile we ensured Luna was safely escorted back to Night City with her precious recorded footage of the battle, cut to show her in action with a tag something along the lines of ‘Luna wins!!’
After reaching Night City I discovered I had been promoted again and was now CEO of a Rocklin sub-division, so that was good. I gave my interns a bonus by way of upgraded or extra gear and cyberwear and we thought about our next steps. Maelstrom came calling and wanted us to help them out in return for favourable dealings. We accepted as it meant less risk to our operations. Maelstrom were not an outfit we wanted to mess with. So, we helped them damage their enemy gang, the Romanov’s, operations. That went well. We essentially bribed one of their drivers to get us in with a Maelstrom strike team and well, we walked away having done our part…
We then decided as part of a special session we would go after the remains of the Aero Pirates clan. Every so often we hold a Saturday session and typically we try to run this as an extended session and usually featuring a battle.
So, working with Paltrowe again, we teamed up with a Militech strike team and with a few mercs of our own we headed into the wastes to take on the clan. We felt this important as they could still pose a threat to the ship. So, we used drones to get us some early footage and then trekked up to their base.
As we were about to engage in battle and to keep it to a manageable timeframe, the GM decided we would run three differing scenarios which focused on reducing their threat, our casualties and their ability to escape…
In short order we targeted a grounded dirigible to destroy a command and communications facility, then took on a heavy gun emplacement and then finally engaged in stopping their command fleeing in an AV. Suffice to say we succeeded.
It was part way through these scenarios we took a break for lunch and collectively come to the realisation that this was a great place to end the campaign.
My executive Slice was becoming a major boss in her corporation and therefore no longer an edgerunner, Quack was becoming more of a strategic player, Sharp had gone as the player had left due to work commitments and Menendez whilst was still very much suited to edgerunner action, we had a team that in practice operated at different levels. There was no real reason for Slice to continue to get her hands dirty and directly risk her life and any scenario pitched at a more strategic level would risk leaving Menendez as more of a bodyguard, so after a year of playing Cyberpunk Red RPG, we agreed to wrap up the campaign at the conclusion of this mission.
It was a great success in terms of getting to grips with the rules, we created some homebrew to improve the at times rather limited ruleset, as characters we had some amazing life changing accomplishments, but that was partly the problem. What else could we do and feel on the edge…
About the author: As well as playing board games, Neil has been playing a variety of roleplaying games since 1982, including creating campaigns as a GM and espousing the art and craft of being a good GM and the therapeutic value of games generally.
