A really fun comparison of some sample hacking/decking/netrunning runs in Shadowrun (1st, 4th, 5th), Cyberpunk (2020, RED), and a couple of systems I’m unfamiliar with.

It’s interesting to see the ludic philosophy for each system:

  • Shadowrun seems to value stealth for deckers, meaning cybercombat only occurs when something goes wrong.
  • Cyberpunk seems to expect netrunners to steamroll everything in the system they’re attacking.

I have a personal attachment to the Shadowrun style, and I’m trying to figure out how “sneaking” works in Cyberpunk RED. I think the short answer is it doesn’t, and I’ll have to figure out what an alarm means in this system and how it should be triggered.