Friday, 6 February 2015

Cyberpunk 2020 PreGens: Solos

Welcome to part 2 of my Cyberpunk 2020 pre-gen project. Once again, this post will provide three pre-generated characters and a whole bunch of contact and adventure hooks to go with them. Next time we want to run a Cyberpunk 2020 game on G+ at short notice, sorting out characters won't take an hour!

Last time, we covered arguably the least popular role in the Corebook, the Rockerboy. This time, we're all about Solos. Below, you'll find the Smooth Operator, the Pointman and the Professional. All of them are hardened, effective killers. 

As before, the characters below are mostly RAW (Rules As Written), drawing skills and equipment from the Corebook alone. 

A few things that aren't RAW:

1. Rather than spend hours picking equipment and cyberware, I've given everyone a fairly balanced array of gear based on the "Quick and Dirty" character generation guide.

2. Everyone gets 20 pick-up skill points, regardless of their INT and REF scores.

Each character begins with 60 Attribute Points and 60 Skill Points (40 Career Points and 20 Pick-Up Points).

I haven't rolled the dice for Humanity Loss or the Lifepath tables. Leave that to the players! 

SOLOS


The Solo: Cyberpunk 2020's classic Cyber-Enhanced Murder-Bastard (CEMB), played by just about everyone at some point (admit it!). Genre examples include Molly in Neuromancer, Sarah in Hardwired and zen-inflected cyber-enhanced murder-bastard Etienne Stewart in Voice of the Whirlwind (my personal favourite). 

And then there's film. Bonus points if it was directed by Luc Besson! Nikita, Leon/The Professional, District 13...

There are a couple of good Solo films not made by Luc Besson. Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai is superior to all of them. Even better, one of the main characters can only speak French, which means it could have been made by Luc Besson.

The less said about that bog-spawned abomination Taken, the better.

This post includes three pre-generated Solos.

The Smooth Operator is fast. Really, really fast. S/he has the Social skills to blend into any crowd, the Awareness/Notice to identify any threat, and the speedware and Combat Sense to outdraw any opponent. S/he could just as easily be a super-spy.

The Pointman takes on the jobs where the milspec tech comes out to play. A mercenary, an armoured tank, a rifleman. A Solo to fight an all-out Corporate War in those campaigns where armour and automatic weapons are the norm, not the exception.  

The Professional is an urban hitman. S/he relies on stealth to case and enter target buildings and a multitude of skills to stalk and kill targets. 

And once again, scroll to the bottom of the post for a collection of contacts and antagonists for Solo/Street Samurai style characters in any cyberpunk setting!