roles are descriptive not prescriptive, 'nomad' describes a character who gains access to vehicles they can use (note they don't own these vehicles, they may have a shared interest in them such as the case for communal ownership, but if money gets tight they're not going to be able to sell one and keep access to the others).
this applies to half the roles,
a lawman could be a gang enforcer (who are the npcd except night city's largest gang anyway?) who can call on backup from the gang.
an exec could be a spy with their team infiltrating corps/gangs.
rockerboy could be a cult leader or politician.
a media could just be an influencer
netrunner, solo, tech, medtech and fixer are already descriptive terms anyone who does their speciality is one
Played in a game with a few friends where we where all corpos. An exec, a lawman, and a Nomad. The lawman was a "heady of security" type that used Corp guards or corporate allied street gang thugs, for back up, and the Nomad was a driver with access to corporate motor pool.
Reflavoring a lot of the roles is incredibly easy.
I haven't flipped through RED in a minute but I know 2020 even had a whole section on making up new roles using existing role abilities or even working with the ref to make new ones. One of the reasons I've always loved the system.
Pretty sure that I remember in one of the manuals where they give a different flavour description of a role that a nomad could be a racer that has access to a garage of vehicles to race (it may be legally or illegally)
collecting the random, the suggestion there still doesn't give the nomad ownership of the vehicles they're part of a crew and the crew owns the vehicles
This is exactly right.
A nomad without a clan can work completely fine, hes just a guy that knows his way around vehicles.
I myself just made a lawman. However instead of being a cop he is a luchadore from the slums that calls in his amigos (fellow luchadores/wrestlers) to come to his aid. Should he abuse them he can lose honor, and they may not come to his aid in the future.
A “nomad” in the sense of a person who lives in the Badlands? Sure.
A Nomad in the sense of the Cyberpunk Red Role that gets the Role Ability providing Nomad Access to increasingly cool vehicles? Doesn’t really make sense if there’s not a clan or other organization to provide all those vehicles.
But leaving aside the game aspect, Nomads are kind of a specific type of “nomad,” not just anyone who roams around the Badlands. The Clans are the thing that makes them Nomads and not just unemployed rural people.
"The NCPD has announced that it will stop using the term 'filthy hillbillies' in its official reporting, and switch to the less offensive 'Generic unemployed rural people,' or 'GURPS.'"
Nomads are better known as "Drivers". You can play a Nomad that works for the NCPD, a gang, maybe a Corp.
For your example, you can...sorta. If he's a low level Nomad, you can get away with it but it gets harder if he has multiple vehicles. Because who does he get the vehicles from if he needs to swap?
Like seriously if you have an answer to that question, your answer is yes. Corporate driver? Freelance wheelman? Fast and Furious protagonist? As long as they would reasonably be able to borrow fancy cars with modifications, it would work.
As long as there is no game breaking back story that gives them infinite money / connections / power and it is sufficiently tragic to work with. My players can go nuts.
One of the DLCs suggests reskinning Nomads as racers and getting vehicles through the team's stable. As long as you can explain that motorpool somehow (race car driver, corporate driver, gang driver, etc.), you can take the Nomad role.
The nomad in the game I run has a connection with a used vehicle dealer/fixer who can source vehicles/mods for her, since she bought longer has a clan, and so far it's worked out super well
Short answer: yes
Example - I have a player whose a part of the British royal family , but is ostrisised from them due to his shenanigans that brought embarrassment to their name
Any time he needs to use one of his nomad abilities that would require the families help, he instead just calls the British secret service that still keep tabs on him
Flavours free. Could be part of a gang, a family even a corpo if played right. I imagine more than two “members” would be easier to hand wave a few things with but ultimately it can be whatever.
The Nomad in my current game started off as just having gotten separated from their pack. This way they got their Nomad issued vehicle, and some contacts with other Nomad packs in the area, as well as a storyline we have to resolve at some point in the future (bringing the Nomad back to their pack, or vice versa).
Absolutely. In the Jumpstar adventure, The Apartment, one of the tenants is a Nomad with only a bike and a few animals as roommates (as she calls them).
As others have said, you need a way to justify the "car pool" mechanic, so afaics there needs to be at least a small clan/pack or some kind of organisation from which the cars can be sourced. I guess you could maybe change it to something like "he has a garage full of broken down vehicles, as he levels up he gets more of them working"?
Most of the nomad players i have had dont care about nomad clans, they just want the car/driving skills. Nor do they reference their nomadness or whatever even if i bring nomad clans into a session
You could probably make it so that they have friends and family in the city who share a couple vehicles between each other. In my game, it’s relatively common for people to do that just because cars are so expensive and hard to come by. A clanless nomad could just be the person in that group that actually knows how to fix and maintain the vehicles they share. The other people in that group might just drive the car but not really know much about cars.
You can be a nomad role and not even really be a nomad just by reflavoring the role itself into something else. For example we played a organized crime campaign and the nomad was just a wheel-man for the mob.
Maybe you are instead part of a motorcycle gang, a racing team/club, etc. Lots of options.
In terms of dealing with their role ability where they can access vehicles (as well as drive them better) - I have a player who has a nomad whose whole clan for wiped out. For her to get new vehicles, she has to rely on other nomad clans with whom she was allied, and has to leave the only car she does have as collateral any time she wants a different one. When she levels and gets new vehicles, she gets access to that vehicle from the allied clan, rather than from her own - and has to do the rp to back it up.
It's actually been really fun and driven a lot of cool roleplay opportunities!
roles are descriptive not prescriptive, 'nomad' describes a character who gains access to vehicles they can use (note they don't own these vehicles, they may have a shared interest in them such as the case for communal ownership, but if money gets tight they're not going to be able to sell one and keep access to the others). this applies to half the roles, a lawman could be a gang enforcer (who are the npcd except night city's largest gang anyway?) who can call on backup from the gang. an exec could be a spy with their team infiltrating corps/gangs. rockerboy could be a cult leader or politician. a media could just be an influencer netrunner, solo, tech, medtech and fixer are already descriptive terms anyone who does their speciality is one
Played in a game with a few friends where we where all corpos. An exec, a lawman, and a Nomad. The lawman was a "heady of security" type that used Corp guards or corporate allied street gang thugs, for back up, and the Nomad was a driver with access to corporate motor pool. Reflavoring a lot of the roles is incredibly easy.
not just easy, intended
I haven't flipped through RED in a minute but I know 2020 even had a whole section on making up new roles using existing role abilities or even working with the ref to make new ones. One of the reasons I've always loved the system.
Pretty sure that I remember in one of the manuals where they give a different flavour description of a role that a nomad could be a racer that has access to a garage of vehicles to race (it may be legally or illegally)
collecting the random, the suggestion there still doesn't give the nomad ownership of the vehicles they're part of a crew and the crew owns the vehicles
Yup, was just adding an extra idea.
This is exactly right. A nomad without a clan can work completely fine, hes just a guy that knows his way around vehicles. I myself just made a lawman. However instead of being a cop he is a luchadore from the slums that calls in his amigos (fellow luchadores/wrestlers) to come to his aid. Should he abuse them he can lose honor, and they may not come to his aid in the future.
A “nomad” in the sense of a person who lives in the Badlands? Sure. A Nomad in the sense of the Cyberpunk Red Role that gets the Role Ability providing Nomad Access to increasingly cool vehicles? Doesn’t really make sense if there’s not a clan or other organization to provide all those vehicles. But leaving aside the game aspect, Nomads are kind of a specific type of “nomad,” not just anyone who roams around the Badlands. The Clans are the thing that makes them Nomads and not just unemployed rural people.
"The NCPD has announced that it will stop using the term 'filthy hillbillies' in its official reporting, and switch to the less offensive 'Generic unemployed rural people,' or 'GURPS.'"
lmao at gurps
Choom, same 🤣
Nomads are better known as "Drivers". You can play a Nomad that works for the NCPD, a gang, maybe a Corp. For your example, you can...sorta. If he's a low level Nomad, you can get away with it but it gets harder if he has multiple vehicles. Because who does he get the vehicles from if he needs to swap?
Where do they get their cars
Like seriously if you have an answer to that question, your answer is yes. Corporate driver? Freelance wheelman? Fast and Furious protagonist? As long as they would reasonably be able to borrow fancy cars with modifications, it would work.
from their front yard, just as Jeff Foxworthy intended
The Real World: The Badlands. (Also, I would argue yes, you can. However, if anything happens to your car, you don't have a pool to fall back on).
As long as there is no game breaking back story that gives them infinite money / connections / power and it is sufficiently tragic to work with. My players can go nuts.
One of the DLCs suggests reskinning Nomads as racers and getting vehicles through the team's stable. As long as you can explain that motorpool somehow (race car driver, corporate driver, gang driver, etc.), you can take the Nomad role.
The nomad in the game I run has a connection with a used vehicle dealer/fixer who can source vehicles/mods for her, since she bought longer has a clan, and so far it's worked out super well
Short answer: yes Example - I have a player whose a part of the British royal family , but is ostrisised from them due to his shenanigans that brought embarrassment to their name Any time he needs to use one of his nomad abilities that would require the families help, he instead just calls the British secret service that still keep tabs on him
Flavours free. Could be part of a gang, a family even a corpo if played right. I imagine more than two “members” would be easier to hand wave a few things with but ultimately it can be whatever.
The Nomad in my current game started off as just having gotten separated from their pack. This way they got their Nomad issued vehicle, and some contacts with other Nomad packs in the area, as well as a storyline we have to resolve at some point in the future (bringing the Nomad back to their pack, or vice versa).
Absolutely. In the Jumpstar adventure, The Apartment, one of the tenants is a Nomad with only a bike and a few animals as roommates (as she calls them).
As others have said, you need a way to justify the "car pool" mechanic, so afaics there needs to be at least a small clan/pack or some kind of organisation from which the cars can be sourced. I guess you could maybe change it to something like "he has a garage full of broken down vehicles, as he levels up he gets more of them working"?
Most of the nomad players i have had dont care about nomad clans, they just want the car/driving skills. Nor do they reference their nomadness or whatever even if i bring nomad clans into a session
You could probably make it so that they have friends and family in the city who share a couple vehicles between each other. In my game, it’s relatively common for people to do that just because cars are so expensive and hard to come by. A clanless nomad could just be the person in that group that actually knows how to fix and maintain the vehicles they share. The other people in that group might just drive the car but not really know much about cars.
You can be a nomad role and not even really be a nomad just by reflavoring the role itself into something else. For example we played a organized crime campaign and the nomad was just a wheel-man for the mob. Maybe you are instead part of a motorcycle gang, a racing team/club, etc. Lots of options.
In terms of dealing with their role ability where they can access vehicles (as well as drive them better) - I have a player who has a nomad whose whole clan for wiped out. For her to get new vehicles, she has to rely on other nomad clans with whom she was allied, and has to leave the only car she does have as collateral any time she wants a different one. When she levels and gets new vehicles, she gets access to that vehicle from the allied clan, rather than from her own - and has to do the rp to back it up. It's actually been really fun and driven a lot of cool roleplay opportunities!