# Reddit: First time GMing CBR+PNK tags: #thoughts #game/rpg/cbr-pnk I have been ludicrously productive lately when it comes to writing long-form responses. It doesn't hurt that I have fiction-first game design at the front of my brain lately. How about some *[[CBR+PNK]]*? ![[CBR-PNK (cover).jpg|300]] > Hey everyone. I ran my first ever session as GM last week using CBR+PNK (one-shot style, 3 players). Overall it went well — players had fun, we'll continue — but I got some honest feedback afterward that I want to fix before the next session. > > The main problem: my scenes felt too short and too shallow. The players didn't feel like they had enough space to actually *play their characters.* Things resolved too quickly, and the fictional world never really pushed back against them in a meaningful way. > > The clearest example was a casino scene. The setup was good — an ongoing firefight between Arasaka and the New Yakuza, a soldier in cyberpsychosis destroying everything, security turrets, a locked door to the clinic where the target was. Lots of potential. > > But in practice: the players moved through it in a few rolls, the turrets got hacked, and they were on the other side before anything really *bit* them. One of my players (who has experience with Cyberpunk Red) said it felt like the scene went dark and then they were just… through it. No real tension, no moment where the situation forced a genuine choice or cost them something. > > I think I understand **why** it happened: > > - I wasn't building scenes around a real question the players had to answer — just obstacles to overcome > - Partial successes didn't leave a visible mark on the situation > - No NPC in the scene had their own agenda that intersected with what the players wanted > - The world didn't *react* to their actions in ways that created new problems > > I'm coming from a D&D background where the structure of turns and action economy creates density automatically. In CBR+PNK I realize I have to build that density myself — but I don't yet have the instincts for it. > > Specific questions: > > 1. How do you make sure scenes (not just combat) give each player a real moment to act and feel the weight of their choices? > 2. What's your approach to partial successes — how do you make the complication feel like it actually changes the situation rather than just being a minor inconvenience? > 3. Any prep techniques that help you build scenes with genuine depth without over-scripting them? > > Thanks in advance. This system feels incredible when it works and I want to learn how to make it work. > > -- https://www.reddit.com/r/CbrPnkRPG/comments/1t70e7b/first_time_gming_cbrpnk_scenes_feel_too_short_and I think it's safe to say that all three of your questions spur from the same source, which is that you aren't thinking of the fiction first, but rather are stuck approaching it from the D&D architecture where the mechanics come first and the fiction follows. This is a pretty common problem. There are some fairly straightforward solutions. But let's talk about your specific questions one at a time. > 1. How do you make sure scenes (not just combat) give each player a real moment to act and feel the weight of their choices? Every character has a motivation. They have things that they want, things that they are pursuing, reasons that they are involved in this one last run. The scenes should deliberately and consciously address those things. A successful scene should make them feel closer to what they came for. Something that's overall unsuccessful should make them feel like it's pulling away from them. From this perspective, combat is just another scene. It exists to maneuver the characters in the fictional space further from or closer to their goals. Don't think of combat as something that is separate and different. Think of it as just another way to reveal character and their position in the fiction. Of course, the other part of that is that the players need to have made choices. In order to make choices, you have to give them actual choices to make. This may go against your natural training to have presented them with a situation and have them react. Instead, what you want them to do is to get themselves into situations by their own choices in the pursuit of the objective. > 1. What's your approach to partial successes — how do you make the complication feel like it actually changes the situation rather than just being a minor inconvenience? *CBR + PNK* is necessarily short on description due to its format, which doesn't make it ideal for new GMs to the Forged in the Dark formula. If you have the time and opportunity, I would definitely suggest you get your hands on *[Blades in the Dark](https://bladesinthedark.com/greetings-scoundrel)* and give it a good reading because it talks about complications at good length. If for whatever reason you can't get your hands on *Blades in the Dark*, though, there are some excellent free resources which will be more than sufficient. The one that I would definitely say you need to read is *[Ironsworn](https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn)*, if you haven't already. The inheritance from PBTA/FITD is significant, and the GM advice in general is fantastic. Plus, you can have it for free, which is the best price. The short version is to remember that complications are exactly that. There is one thing that can never happen from rolling the dice, and that's "nothing happens." Anytime the dice hit the table, the situation changes, whether it be in the character's favor or to their detriment. Complications provide those detriments. Remember, a partial success is not a failure. They get what they wanted. Whatever the stakes were that motivated the question to the dice, they get what they were trying to do. It's just that in so doing, something else came up which made the situation more challenging, perhaps more difficult. A minor inconvenience is not a complication. A minor inconvenience is quite possibly a descriptive element of a complete success. A complication literally changes the situation such that it becomes more complicated. Trying to bypass an electronic lock on a door before the guards make their next patrol. A partial success may lead to one of the guards having skipped out on his patrol to go to the bathroom at an inconvenient time for you. He's coming down the hall, but the door is unlocked. This could lead to requiring another die roll before you can get through completely unnoticed or a bit of fast talking. Maybe you got into the door but set off an electronic trace, kicking off a clock which has four segments, which can be filled up by other complications to come before the alarms go into overdrive and the facility goes into lockdown. Did you get into a fight? A complication can mean that you landed that final blow, but the vibration going up your arm blew out the muscle augment. Perhaps you definitely overpowered that guy without much of a trouble, but he goes down on his knees and starts begging you, blubbering like a baby, talking about his family, afraid you're going to kill him. A good complication often leads to one of the deadly GM questions: "So what are you going to do about that?" It can never be a minor inconvenience because it's something that changes fictive position. Things are not as you expected them to be, even though you got what you wanted. > 1. Any prep techniques that help you build scenes with genuine depth without over-scripting them? The best prep advice I can offer you when it comes to *CBR + PNK* and similar games is very simple: don't. Your prep is not going to build scenes with genuine depth because genuine depth comes from the players and their characters. Your job as the GM is to provide them opportunity, and their job is to be looking for opportunities and making opportunities. In order to provide them opportunities, know what characters want and what they care about. If they don't want or care about anything, something has gone terribly wrong during character generation, and it may be unsalvageable. These are characters who need to be really driven to do one last gig, go one last dangerous place, who have things to lose, both internal and external. Pay attention to what those things are. Fold them into the situation. Then let the players decide what they're going to do and follow through on that. Remember the core axiom, "play to find out." You are not deciding what happens or what can happen beforehand. You, along with the players, are playing to find out what happens. Cover all those bases and you'll be in better shape, I'm pretty sure.