I started awarding points on an individual basis when I first started, but to me it felt like I was picking favorites for people who were more actively engaged. So I agree that group IP awarding is the best for everyone.
I think that can reward bad gaming. By giving everyone the same IP's you're saying "it's okay to do what you want; everyone is equal" - trust me , they're not. I,ve had players who do fuck all roleplaying, do nothing, side talk, make jokes; why should they get as much IP as those players who have RP'd, gone out to do things & generally made the session better. Players have complained that they didn't receive as much IP/XP as others to which i,ve responded : start RPing and stop being a murder Hobo, power gaming cock & you can have some bonus points. Despite the modern sensibilities i don't think RPG groups are some small scale idealised democracy where everyone is equal. Human society just doesn't work that way despite what the SJW propoganda rams down your throat.
i did similar for a game i ran (godbound) i would usually always give similar xp to everyone, because the points were given based on whether characters did impressive things or acted to do with their concept/character very well. but i quickly realised that usually if someone was more impressive one session, it wasn't necessarily due to their competence or the laziness of others, it would be often a product of me as DM giving situations that gave easier moments to a specific player, just as a consequence of what was in that scene and their abilities were, so i would usually reward then similarly as they're generally solid players (it's a group I've played with for a decent time) they would have done just as well if I'd given them a situation more fitted to them
@@ShadowCoH316 you don't have to abide by the archetypes a player gives themselves. Just look at their overall performance. Cyberpunk isn't a game about equality, it's in the premise: not all people are made equal. Some have it easy, some are insanely powerful already or always have been. And the players are rats that have yet to grow. The better you do, the higher you go, that's the way of NC
I have only ran CP:Red a handful of times, but I tend to give group IP. However, I give bonuses to the group based on what each individual did during the session to incentivize people and reward engagement.
I think that is a pretty solid method of running experience. In my campaigns, I do it a bit differently. I award both the group IP and the individual IP for each player (if a player gets behind the others by a significant degree, I increase the amount of points I give them by 20-50% in order to help them catch up). That incentivizes players to do cool stuff and advance the plot, but it also doesn't cause a large power gap between my players. On a separate note, one of the things I like to do when one of my players does something game-defining or world-defining, I generally like to reduce the price of whatever skill it was associated with. Oh, you cleanly assassinated a high value target that was behind really heavy fortification? Your next shoulder arms upgrade is half off. Likewise, the tech who cut the bulletproof glass window out from the wall for you in the night gets stealth half off.
I am so glad that I found your channel! I just started to GM Cyberpunk, and quite frankly to GM in general, and in my very first session I fussed over the IP Chart for like 10 minutes and it felt wrong giving less than 60 at all for a good satisfying session, but I thought to myself: "Why else would there be even 20 or 10 IP if you are not supposed to go that low". Glad to see that you are not afraid to go even higher than the metric, this video helped me a ton to understand that the most important part is giving everyone a satisfying sense of progression :)
Way late but congrats on being the bad ass who makes CPR their first GM experience! You’ll find that sweet spot in IP. One thing to NEVER do is punish players with IP. It feels really bad.
I agree with 80 Session times and frequency in meets should be mentioned. If you got weekly 4 hours sessions, 80 IP feels right. If you meet biweekly for 8+ hour game nights 80 is slow. It costs over 3000 IP to maximize a Role. That's 38 sessions at 80 IP with no skill raises, just over 9 months weekly which feels right, but over a year and a half biweekly, which is rarely feasible.
My setup for my tables rewards IP upon mission completion (Getting paid after or getting an O.K. from the client). 40-80 depending on the story relevance and danger of the mission. But I also reward players 10IP per enemy they defeated. So a player with 2 combat kills and completing dangerous side job in 1 session gets a total of 20+60IP
The fact 20 IP is the suggested reward for "The player effectively roleplayed in character all the time, used combat Skills often and effectively, taking out important opponents, was a supportive and helpful part of the party, in and out of the game and used exploration effectively to learn about the world and the situation." is borderline comical.
One thing that I was hoping to have been covered is the sandbox rewards. Not everyone necessarily runs a whole beat chart and has a railroad for players to follow. Sometimes it's disjointed, with a number of plots going on, so there really isn't a "minor/major plot point resolved" point to achieve. What about the individual, disconnected jobs that were done just to make the eddies to survive? Cyberpunk is the game about perpetual poverty after all, about how we're struggling to make ends meet before everything else. Plot doesn't always revolve around making money, and money *needs* to be made in order to not be evicted or suffer starvation
my GM will sometimes give me a free rank in a skill in addition to normal improvement points if I did something notably impactful with it, or got an absurdly high critical roll with it. usually only for skills with low investment though.
i think I'll use group/gig IP generally - but if one player does something that would net them more based on their playstyle - then everyone reaps the higher reward. so like, as a group they'd have got 50, but because the solo did really well and would have gotten 60, everyone gets 60 instead.
My dm gave base 40 per session, and then every successful roll the party makes that adds 1 ip. This way the players are encouraged to really engage if they want levels
Would it also make sense to give a little to chance as well at the end of a session. Like have them roll and the winner gets one extra IP. I always thought it was kind of fun to finish with a game of chance. Or if 2 people did above and beyond rolls or choices so have those two roll for an extra point, or have them role a small dice roll and whatever they roll is the extra IP they get.
How long of a campaign do you usually play with these IP awards? It seems like a lot of IP but are retiring after a few months or looking more long term? I'm just trying to find a sweet spot since our sessions are only 3 hours/week but it will probably be going on for a long time...
A question about design of your system Jon. How frequent and long are your sessions ? Is it a weekly game? Would you change the IP rewards with a lower frequency of game sessions? I literally session zeroed the game I'm going to be running this Thursday just gone but we have a fortnightly session so using your suggested rewards would be an upgrade every 2 months if they were lucky and just got a skill point, which seems slow to me. Im running as an experienced roleplayer of a variety of systems and I'm pretty good with the running of the main game but I'm uncertain about the advancement system for Red.
Sessions are 2 to 3 hours. Hopefully once a week minimum. I reward 65 to 100 up depending on the situation. Don’t stress too hard about it choom. Have fun and go with the flow
Instead of 80 IP for doing something epic I give 100! For each instance and among each player. Then you can move up in ranks and become a real Night City Legend!
Our group usually plays 2-3 hour sessions but our first 4 sessions so far have been about 10 hours just because of lucky scheduling. So we are 40 hours into this game which is new for all of us. We have earned 350 improvement points and been successful at all of our missions so far. Does 350 seem too slow for 40 hours of play? We usually play dnd or pathfinder so I'm afraid that it is too slow. Please tell me what you think.
3 session is like a month of playing for one skill rank. That ain't reasonable at all. Considering that in this game you will die in a single round of combat I don't see anyone upping a role more than once. This is the primary reason why I am struggling to run this system. How the hell do I have my players progress if they need to sweat for a month to get one skill rank and the next session somebody messes up an skill check, walks into an ambush and lose a character or two? This game basically has no progression.
I really hated this system. Like... if a player is in the combat column, then you HAVE to put combat into a session, or that player is screwed. And if there IS combat, then the other players are annoyed that only one of them is getting extra IP for basically doing the same thing everyone else is. And if there is something for everyone, and you give a roleplayer/socializer less IP than a warrior or explorer, then they get annoyed because there is no direct way to fairly compare those things. Or the other way around. Because nearly ever roleplayer will have the innate desire to get at least as many IP as everyone else. And if you compensate for this by somehow handwaving it until everyone gets roughly the same amount of IP, then the players quickly realize how the entire system is pointless, because they will get roughly the same amount anyway, no matter what they do. I think pretty much every group immediately switched it out for group IP, because it's just such an annoying system to bother with.
All I hear here is complaining about delayed gratification and cost benefit analysis. Group IP should be low and general. Individual IP should be high and only applied to the skills that were used. Use Call of Cthulhu as an example of individual improvement, or Traveller for study and training.
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
Side note: I avoid giving out IP that ends in 5. Because the cost of improvement is multiples of ten.
Well, if you give out IP that ends in 5 even times, then... tadaa!
@@melkor1021 Or if you want to mess with the players, give them something ending 9 and then from there on only give multiples of 10.
@@MalzraAirwynn Your an evil man.
I started awarding points on an individual basis when I first started, but to me it felt like I was picking favorites for people who were more actively engaged. So I agree that group IP awarding is the best for everyone.
I think that can reward bad gaming. By giving everyone the same IP's you're saying "it's okay to do what you want; everyone is equal" - trust me , they're not. I,ve had players who do fuck all roleplaying, do nothing, side talk, make jokes; why should they get as much IP as those players who have RP'd, gone out to do things & generally made the session better. Players have complained that they didn't receive as much IP/XP as others to which i,ve responded : start RPing and stop being a murder Hobo, power gaming cock & you can have some bonus points. Despite the modern sensibilities i don't think RPG groups are some small scale idealised democracy where everyone is equal. Human society just doesn't work that way despite what the SJW propoganda rams down your throat.
Shouldn't we encourage people to actively engage?
@@ericgrajeda9916 not if it means alienating people for not finding a way to engage in a particular session.
i did similar for a game i ran (godbound) i would usually always give similar xp to everyone, because the points were given based on whether characters did impressive things or acted to do with their concept/character very well. but i quickly realised that usually if someone was more impressive one session, it wasn't necessarily due to their competence or the laziness of others, it would be often a product of me as DM giving situations that gave easier moments to a specific player, just as a consequence of what was in that scene and their abilities were, so i would usually reward then similarly as they're generally solid players (it's a group I've played with for a decent time) they would have done just as well if I'd given them a situation more fitted to them
@@ShadowCoH316 you don't have to abide by the archetypes a player gives themselves. Just look at their overall performance.
Cyberpunk isn't a game about equality, it's in the premise: not all people are made equal. Some have it easy, some are insanely powerful already or always have been. And the players are rats that have yet to grow. The better you do, the higher you go, that's the way of NC
I have only ran CP:Red a handful of times, but I tend to give group IP. However, I give bonuses to the group based on what each individual did during the session to incentivize people and reward engagement.
I think that is a pretty solid method of running experience. In my campaigns, I do it a bit differently. I award both the group IP and the individual IP for each player (if a player gets behind the others by a significant degree, I increase the amount of points I give them by 20-50% in order to help them catch up). That incentivizes players to do cool stuff and advance the plot, but it also doesn't cause a large power gap between my players.
On a separate note, one of the things I like to do when one of my players does something game-defining or world-defining, I generally like to reduce the price of whatever skill it was associated with. Oh, you cleanly assassinated a high value target that was behind really heavy fortification? Your next shoulder arms upgrade is half off. Likewise, the tech who cut the bulletproof glass window out from the wall for you in the night gets stealth half off.
I am so glad that I found your channel! I just started to GM Cyberpunk, and quite frankly to GM in general, and in my very first session I fussed over the IP Chart for like 10 minutes and it felt wrong giving less than 60 at all for a good satisfying session, but I thought to myself: "Why else would there be even 20 or 10 IP if you are not supposed to go that low". Glad to see that you are not afraid to go even higher than the metric, this video helped me a ton to understand that the most important part is giving everyone a satisfying sense of progression :)
You nailed it choom! I hope you have many wonderful games
Way late but congrats on being the bad ass who makes CPR their first GM experience! You’ll find that sweet spot in IP. One thing to NEVER do is punish players with IP. It feels really bad.
I agree with 80
Session times and frequency in meets should be mentioned.
If you got weekly 4 hours sessions, 80 IP feels right. If you meet biweekly for 8+ hour game nights 80 is slow.
It costs over 3000 IP to maximize a Role. That's 38 sessions at 80 IP with no skill raises, just over 9 months weekly which feels right, but over a year and a half biweekly, which is rarely feasible.
But what about biweekly for 3-4 hours, what then?
Sounds like it's worth homebrewing a 2-track ip system where you give "role" ip and "skill" ip.
thx Jon. This video has helped me decide how to give IP to my players
Awesome! Happy gaming
About to run my first cyberpunk session ever, you have been so helpful! I've played in a few in the old system but not R.E.D.
My setup for my tables rewards IP upon mission completion (Getting paid after or getting an O.K. from the client). 40-80 depending on the story relevance and danger of the mission. But I also reward players 10IP per enemy they defeated. So a player with 2 combat kills and completing dangerous side job in 1 session gets a total of 20+60IP
Good video Ranger Paul!
Good insight for when I run my game eventually :D
Haha anytime talovnir
Liking the videos my guy
Thanks for the support dude
My GM gives us a lot of IP. Maybe more than double of what should be normally given by game rules. Way better this way, I believe.
I seriously Can’t wait to run a game ! I really need to jump in a session sometime soon though.
Great breakdown and summary. Thanks!
The fact 20 IP is the suggested reward for "The player effectively roleplayed in character all the time, used combat Skills often and effectively, taking out important opponents, was a supportive and helpful part of the party, in and out of the game and used exploration effectively to learn about the world and the situation." is borderline comical.
One thing that I was hoping to have been covered is the sandbox rewards.
Not everyone necessarily runs a whole beat chart and has a railroad for players to follow. Sometimes it's disjointed, with a number of plots going on, so there really isn't a "minor/major plot point resolved" point to achieve. What about the individual, disconnected jobs that were done just to make the eddies to survive? Cyberpunk is the game about perpetual poverty after all, about how we're struggling to make ends meet before everything else. Plot doesn't always revolve around making money, and money *needs* to be made in order to not be evicted or suffer starvation
my GM will sometimes give me a free rank in a skill in addition to normal improvement points if I did something notably impactful with it, or got an absurdly high critical roll with it. usually only for skills with low investment though.
I didn't realize you weren't supposed to do both group and individual.
i think I'll use group/gig IP generally - but if one player does something that would net them more based on their playstyle - then everyone reaps the higher reward.
so like, as a group they'd have got 50, but because the solo did really well and would have gotten 60, everyone gets 60 instead.
My dm gave base 40 per session, and then every successful roll the party makes that adds 1 ip. This way the players are encouraged to really engage if they want levels
Great video
Thanks for the numbers.
What's the song that plays at the end? It would make a great session intro
It's a song I made myself, remixing a track from mass effect. I can send it over if you'd like. Email me jonjonthewise@gmail.com
I do group and individual. I don't think you are supposed to do just one :P
Would it also make sense to give a little to chance as well at the end of a session. Like have them roll and the winner gets one extra IP. I always thought it was kind of fun to finish with a game of chance. Or if 2 people did above and beyond rolls or choices so have those two roll for an extra point, or have them role a small dice roll and whatever they roll is the extra IP they get.
My gm goes after the dice roll
How long of a campaign do you usually play with these IP awards? It seems like a lot of IP but are retiring after a few months or looking more long term? I'm just trying to find a sweet spot since our sessions are only 3 hours/week but it will probably be going on for a long time...
I usually do on average 12 sessions 2 hours each. It's worked out great but I recommend you tweak whatever way works for your group.
A question about design of your system Jon.
How frequent and long are your sessions ? Is it a weekly game? Would you change the IP rewards with a lower frequency of game sessions?
I literally session zeroed the game I'm going to be running this Thursday just gone but we have a fortnightly session so using your suggested rewards would be an upgrade every 2 months if they were lucky and just got a skill point, which seems slow to me.
Im running as an experienced roleplayer of a variety of systems and I'm pretty good with the running of the main game but I'm uncertain about the advancement system for Red.
Sessions are 2 to 3 hours. Hopefully once a week minimum. I reward 65 to 100 up depending on the situation. Don’t stress too hard about it choom. Have fun and go with the flow
Jon Jon; what is that tune at the end of this video? It's boss.
Its a song I put together myself. I don’t have it uploaded anywhere currently sorry.
@JonJonTheWise A multi--talented choom. Too bad it's not out n the ether. Good mood music for running a game.
Instead of 80 IP for doing something epic I give 100! For each instance and among each player. Then you can move up in ranks and become a real Night City Legend!
Our group usually plays 2-3 hour sessions but our first 4 sessions so far have been about 10 hours just because of lucky scheduling. So we are 40 hours into this game which is new for all of us. We have earned 350 improvement points and been successful at all of our missions so far. Does 350 seem too slow for 40 hours of play? We usually play dnd or pathfinder so I'm afraid that it is too slow. Please tell me what you think.
It is a little slow in IP gain but that’s all subjective
Side question - What's the ID on the music in the beginning?
on.soundcloud.com/WwyH
My own original work. Here you go 👍
3 session is like a month of playing for one skill rank. That ain't reasonable at all. Considering that in this game you will die in a single round of combat I don't see anyone upping a role more than once. This is the primary reason why I am struggling to run this system. How the hell do I have my players progress if they need to sweat for a month to get one skill rank and the next session somebody messes up an skill check, walks into an ambush and lose a character or two? This game basically has no progression.
I really hated this system.
Like... if a player is in the combat column, then you HAVE to put combat into a session, or that player is screwed. And if there IS combat, then the other players are annoyed that only one of them is getting extra IP for basically doing the same thing everyone else is. And if there is something for everyone, and you give a roleplayer/socializer less IP than a warrior or explorer, then they get annoyed because there is no direct way to fairly compare those things. Or the other way around. Because nearly ever roleplayer will have the innate desire to get at least as many IP as everyone else. And if you compensate for this by somehow handwaving it until everyone gets roughly the same amount of IP, then the players quickly realize how the entire system is pointless, because they will get roughly the same amount anyway, no matter what they do.
I think pretty much every group immediately switched it out for group IP, because it's just such an annoying system to bother with.
All I hear here is complaining about delayed gratification and cost benefit analysis. Group IP should be low and general. Individual IP should be high and only applied to the skills that were used. Use Call of Cthulhu as an example of individual improvement, or Traveller for study and training.