Solitaire: Single Player Mode

The nature of solo play has changed. For years, solo play involved either a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style book of programmed encounters such as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain or a computer game. Then COVID-19 occurred and everyone went into Lockdown. How were we to roleplay, a hobby that by its very nature involved others? The response has been twofold. Both offer the means to roleplay solo. One is the ‘Journalling’ game, such as The Wretched, which provides a set of rules and prompts that the player can use and respond to in order to tell a particular story and then record that story in a journal or diary. The other is a set of solo rules designed to work with an existing roleplaying game, but instead of telling a particular story, offer a wider range of story possibilities within the framework of the roleplaying game’s genre or setting. In addition to roleplaying his character, the player takes on the duties of being the Game Master, not just roleplaying the NPCs and their motivations, but also adjudicating the rules. This is what Single Player Mode is designed to do.

Single Player Mode is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s venerable Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It is designed by the creator and host of Hollowponds Solo Sagas, which includes soloplay throughs of Cyberpunk RED. It first makes the point that Single Player Mode is all about playing ‘solo’, not playing a ‘Solo’, as in the role within Cyberpunk RED, hence the difference in title to supplements for other roleplaying games which address and provide for the same issue. It also gives answers to the question why play a roleplaying game in this mode, and specifically, why play Cyberpunk RED in this mode? The answers are obvious in that the player may not have a group to game with or a group that is interested in the genre, and that compared to computer games, even one like Cyberpunk 2077, the player is constrained by the environment and the storylines that the designers have created. Effectively, the constraints found—or potentially found—in other ways of play, are simply not present in Single Player Mode.

There is advice on how to set up a campaign, whether the player is controlling one character or a crew, and suggestions as to what other supplements for Cyberpunk RED that the player can use in conjunction with Single Player Mode. That said, the player really only needs a copy of Cyberpunk RED to play. Just like playing Cyberpunk RED, the act of playing Single Player Mode is like having a conversation. In a game sat around the table or online, that conversation will be between the player and the Game Master, the player asking questions about what his character can perceive about the world around him and the Game Master supplying the answers, and so on and so on. In Single Player Mode, this conversation has to shift and some of the responsibility has to fall on the player because there is no Game Master. Some questions, such as, “Can Julee snatch the pass from the security guard?” or “Does the ganger spot where Mouse is hiding?”, require a simple Check against a Difficulty Value as in standard play of Cyberpunk RED. However, some questions cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and that is where the Oracle comes into play.

The Oracle is the primary tool for running Single Player Mode, and similar versions are used in other roleplaying games. This is designed to give interesting answers to Closed Questions. For example, “Is ‘Fangs’ Prifti loyal to the Syndicate?” or “Are the Ninth Block Dragons on the hunt tonight to hit their rivals, 7/11 Slicers, tonight?” The Oracle can give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer to a Closed Question, but the other three answers it can give—either, ‘No with Complication’, ‘Complicated’, and ‘Yes with Complication’—are a lot more interesting and lend themselves to a nuanced answer. In all cases, the player now has to step into the role of the Game Master and actually flesh out the answer. However, Single Player Mode goes beyond just using the Oracle for answering Closed Questions and prompting the player to develop an interesting answer. In combination with the supplement’s many, many tables of lists and prompts, it can also be used to answer Open Questions. The most basic of these are the Verb, Noun, and Adjective lists, for example, ‘Breach’, ‘Cop’, and ‘Redundant’, but after that, the tables provide content after content after content. Sights, sounds, and smells, locations both generic and specific to Night City, factions such as companies and corporations, crime organisations, law enforcement or security, gangs, and more, peoples and NPCs and the means to define them, things including fashion and fashionware, firearms, kibble flavours, things to be found on a variety of corpse types—Cyberpunk RED style, media, missions and plots, story beats, and random encounters and threat ratings.

All of these tables—and they do take up over half of Single Player Mode—and their content is designed to serve as prompts from which the player is expected to develop interesting and playable content that both himself and his characters can engage with. With those in hand, Single Player Mode explores how they can be used in the context of the three main challenges that an Edgerunner will face in Cyberpunk RED, all beginning with setting a goal and following through. These are investigative, social, and combat challenges. Investigative and social challenges are built around the number of Skill Checks required to completely investigate a scene or situation or successfully interact with an NPC. Failed Skill Checks do not necessarily impede either, but rather add a complication that delays or impedes the process, or simply forces the Edgerunner to look for another angle. Of course, the main difference between the two is that the player will need to roleplay the NPCs and imagine what they want, and also that Social Skill Checks are opposed.

The fundamental question that Single Player Mode does ask is if a combat is necessary. If it is, there is an option given for quick and dirty combat if the player does not want to break out the full rules. Again, there are options given for failure, though here to avoid a ‘Total party Kill’ or TPK, rather than to avoid not finding a clue or interacting with an NPC to a desired outcome. There are quick and dirty Netrunning rules too, which are not intended to be used where Netrunning is a strong part of the narrative. To further add an element of the unknown and the random, Single Player Mode suggests using ‘Play Clocks’ which use dice pools rather than the traditional segmented clock diagram. The player creates triggers for a scene and when these occur, rolls the dice pool. Dice with results of one are removed from the pool, shrinking the dice pool for the next trigger and then when the last die rolls a one, that is when the big thing happens, or the event occurs. Lastly, there is advice on using the Beat Chart system from Cyberpunk RED, primarily that the player should use it to serve the story rather than himself or the Edgerunners, which all builds to using Single Player Mode to run a whole campaign. The advice is brief here, suggesting that the player build on the plot of the previous scenario and the questions it raised to continue the story and playing.

All of this is supported by a thorough and extended example of play. This follows the same player and his crew of Edgerunners through a complete storyline, each example both showing how the rules and guidelines for Single Player Mode work to develop a story and continuing the story. This is an effective counterpart, simply showing whilst the rules themselves are telling how to play.

Lastly, Single Player Mode has one more card or two in its skin pouch. One is that it is not just useful for solo play by a single player. Two or more players could use Single Player Mode as the means to play Cyberpunk RED without a Game Master. This requires co-operation, but has the potential for lots more ideas to be generated from the prompts in Single Player Mode because there are more players involved. The other card is that Single Player Mode can be used by the Game Master to generate ideas for encounters, hooks, and plots, whether that is part of her preparation or in the middle of play. In other words, the prompts are there to facilitate play whether there is Game Master running the game or not and it is up to the player playing solo or the Game Master to interpret them in pursuit of a story that can be enjoyed by all.

Physically, Single Player Mode is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Despite its title, Single Player Mode can be played or used in more than the one mode. For the Game Master it is a fantastic set of prompts that she can have at her fingertips as needed. For the player, it is good guide to playing roleplaying games solo and a better guide to playing Cyberpunk RED solo. Backed up by really helpful examples that show the player how to do it, Single Player Mode is an impressive guide to solo play that will prompt the player to not just think about roleplaying a good Edgerunner, but in asking him to take on some of the duties of the Game Master, also challenge him to think about telling a good story too.

Magazine Madness 39: Interface RED Volume 3

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Technically Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is not a magazine. It collects some of the downloadable content made available for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game. So, its origins are not those of a magazine, but between 1990 and 1992, Prometheus Press published six issues of the magazine, Interface, which provided support for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. It this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2, and future issues is picking up in providing support for the current edition of the roleplaying game. As a consequence of the issue collecting previously available downloadable content, there is a lot in the issue that is both immediately useful and can be prepared for play with relative ease. There is also some that is not, and may not make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3—as with the previous issue—is by James Hutt and/or J Gray and starts on a hard note, or rather, on a ‘hardened’ note. In the previous issue, two connected articles—‘Hardened Mooks: break glass in case of powergaming’ and ‘Hardened Lieutenants: break glass in case of powergaming’, provided tougher versions of the standard threats, mooks, and lieutenants. With ‘Hardened Mini Bosses’ the series with increased stats for Mini-Bosses in the core rulebook, including ‘Hardened Arasaka Assassin’, ‘Hardened Militech Veteran’, and ‘Hardened Pyro’. This is a mix of the old and the new, so should keep the Player Characters on their toes. Plus, they come with a little commentary on how to best use them.

If ‘Hardened Mini Bosses’ gives the Player Characters someone to fight, then ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’ gives them someone to love—and then, since almost nobody lives happily ever after, someone to fight. Romantic entanglements have always been part of Cyberpunk through its ‘Lifepath’ system of Player Character generation, and Cyberpunk RED is no different. However, what about now, because those relationships are likely to have been in the past and may be long over? To let a Player Character go dating now, the article gives a ‘Datepath’ system which enables the Game Master to determine how the match describes themselves in their dating profile, where the date will take place and what the significance of that location is—for example, if in the Watson Development, the date might have a connection with SovOil, what the date activity will be, how the date goes, and what the after date review will be. This can be rolled as is or played out, and if the latter, it means that a player gets a chance to roleplay another aspect of his character and explore another side of the game that is not necessarily all guns and combat. This is a fun addition if the playing group wants to expand the lives of their characters and would work every well for one-on-one sessions between a single player and the Game Master.

‘Salvaging Night City: A New Downtime Activity’ also gives the Player Characters more to do when away from typical adventures or missions. Although this is primarily for the Tech character type, but any character could engage in this, exploring Night City’s Hot Zone, Combat Zones, and scrapyards, not just for scrap to sell, but items to repair and use and sell. The article also goes through the possible dangers that a scavenger might face, including pollution, radiation, rival scavengers and gangs, unsafe structures, and more. This is an article that can be used to generate, with a bit of effort upon the part of the Game Master, encounters and even scenarios. Plus, like ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’, this activity works well for one-on-one sessions between a single player and the Game Master and also for sessions where there are only a very few Player Characters.

Cyberpunk RED is a roleplaying game that focuses on a lot of gear—equipment, weapons, cyberwear, and cyberware—and its use in play, and if there was a criticism of Cyberpunk RED, it was that it was genericised and therefore not interesting. Issues of Interface have been changing that with names and describes a wide variety of items, and Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is no different. ‘Woodchipper’s Garage: Weapons That go Boom!’ is an interview with a Nomad who purchases weapons scavenged by Nomads in the Badlands and brought into Night City to fulfil the demand for the weapons that deliver a bang! This includes rocket launchers to suit all budgets and attitudes to safety standards, flare guns, flamethrowers, and odd weapons like an air cannon and harpoon launcher! ‘Midnight with the Upload: New Cyberdecks and Hardware’ provides a wide range of decks and new items of hardware, each with own benefits and effects. For example, the ‘Raven Microcyb Phoenix’ is an expensive deck that has six slots to install either Programs or Hardware and protects any programs the Netrunner uses, restoring any that were destroyed during a run, when the Netrunner jacks out. ‘Must Have Cyberware Deals’ details the new chrome that might be purchased from Mr. A-MAAAZE at Dock 13 in sunny South Night City. Want to keep that figure trim or low on rations, install an ‘Appetite Controller’, whilst ‘Lead’s Turn-On-Show-Off Nails’ is the perfect set of programmable, lighted fingernails, and if that shoe does not fit, then the ‘PerfectFit Cyberfoot’ adjusts perfectly (and if the user wants to run in heels, then these are even more perfect!). There is a certain superficiality to these entries, being as they are mostly fashion cyberware. All three of these articles come with no little flavour too. ‘Woodchipper’s Garage: Weapons That go Boom!’ is the most straightforward, primarily focusing on how the weapons that Woodchipper sells are got hold of in the interview, whilst the ‘Midnight with the Upload: New Cyberdecks and Hardware’ gives lots of commentary and feedback that suggests a certain lack of humanity with interacting with the seller and perhaps that they might be a cultist of some kind or a Netwatch Agent. Lastly, ‘Must Have Cyberware Deals’ is all about the slick sales pitch from Mr. A-MAAAZE.

‘Collecting the Random: Ideas, Thoughts, and Lists from the CP:R CREW’ is the second longest article in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3. It is a collection of new rules, such as complementary skill checks, and ideas that how Cyberpunk RED is played, fortunately without the need for any mechanical changes. Roles are a big focus for the article. It suggests ideas for reskinning them, like turning the Netrunner into the Thief or the Exec into the Mobster, all with simple adjustment of the flavour of the mechanics rather actually than changing the Roles. Multiclassing ideas suggest ways in which each of the Roles works with the other nine Roles. For example, the Rockerboy/Media becomes an Influencer, the Netrunner/Fixer the Information Broker, and the Lawman/Media the Psychic Detective. There are some great ideas here that again shift how a Role is played. Campaign ideas making the Player Characters ‘Guerilla Gardeners’, ‘Librarians’, and ‘Food Truck War’ participants and come with some very simple mission ideas. All of these set-ups require no little development, but they all change the focus of a campaign from a more standard set-up. ‘Cyberpunk RED Fashion’ suggests styes such as ‘Bag Lady Chic’(!) and ‘Asia Pop’. This is mostly flavour, of course, as are the article’s final ‘Twenty Random Kibble Flavors’—fizzy kibble anyone? This is just a plethora of fun ideas that a playing group can pick and choose from.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 takes an odd, even cynical turn with ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’. Previous issues of Interface RED have explored the number virtual game world in Night City, ‘Elflines Online’. Effectively a game world within a game world, ‘Elflines Online is a hobby that a Player Character or NPC can play during his downtime, but it can become something that the players can roleplay their characters playing in the world of Cyberpunk RED, a fantasy roleplaying game in the cyberpunk roleplaying game. ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ does not expand to any great degree, but rather introduces a trading card game that the Player Characters can play offline and some of the cards will provide bonuses and benefits in the online game. Full rules are included so that the players can play it too, though using an ordinary deck of playing cards. Accompanying the article is a commentary that highlights the disappointment of some ‘Elflines Online’ players when ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ was launched and since. There is a brilliant cynicism to the whole exercise that feels as if it mirrors certain MMORPGs in the real world.

‘Spinning Your Wheels: A New Way to Ride the Edge’ adds an old technology to the streets of Night City and updates it. This is the bicycle, whose reintroduction is presented in an interview with the head of Yang’s Wheels, the city’s leading manufacturer of bicycles, skateboards, and inline skates. Their introduction brings a cheaper form of transport to both the city and Cyberpunk RED. Of course, they are cheaper to buy then a car, more manoeuvrable, and take up less space. They are all muscle-powered, so require the use of the user’s Athletics skill rather than Drive and, of course, they can be upgraded. Fit cycle armour or a gun mount to the handlebars, or even an enclosure to turn it into a trike. The article also details the type of tricks that can be performed on a bicycle, skateboard, or inline skate.

‘The 12 Days of Cybermas: A Cyberpunk RED Holiday Sequel’ returns with a Christmas carol suitable for the ‘Time of the Red’ and twelve classic pieces of cyberware from days of Cyberpunk past. Want to tear your enemies apart, then install the ChainRip, the original cyberweapon of mass destruction in your cyberarm or look really cool with one cyberoptic, then the Kiroshi MonoVision installs your cybereye in a single band. Whilst the stats update the descriptions, the illustrations feel intentionally dated.

The last and longest article in the issue is ‘Going Metal: full body conversions in Cyberpunk RED’. The article moves on from the fears from cyberpsychosis due to full body conversions to suggest that there is a culture all of its own around full body conversions. This does not stop the opening between someone who has undergone full body conversion to somebody who is about to from being just a little bit creepy. It is followed by complete guide to undergoing a full body conversion in game terms and keep as much Humanity possible, up to a maximum of fifty. Some thirteen standard full body conversions are detailed, like the ‘Cybermatrix Inc. Copernicus’ for work in space, the ‘Dynalar Brimstone’ fireproofed for fighting fire, the ‘Militech Dragoon Revised War Platform’ updated from the full body conversion so successful in 4th Corporate War, and even if the ‘Raven Microcybernetics Gemini’ if you do not want to look like a cyborg! Added to this are numerous pieces of cyberware and gear, which break down the numerous items that go into the design and construction of the earlier full body conversions. The full body conversions come with commentary from the interviewer at the start of the article. There are lots of options here, good for NPCs as well as the Player Characters who want to take a radical step and have the EuroBucks to spend! The article brings Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 to a close with big fully borged options.

Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 it is nice to have it in print. All of it is useful in some ways, though ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ is very much less useful then the other content. Together, ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’ and ‘Salvaging Night City: A New Downtime Activity’ really do bring greater roleplaying opportunities to the play of Cyberpunk RED, whilst ‘Collecting the Random: Ideas, Thoughts, and Lists from the CP:R CREW’ brims with interesting ideas for both the player and the Game Master. Everything else is tech and cybergear-based, adding numerous options and greater choice to the world of Night City and beyond. Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is the best issue to date and there is something for every Cyberpunk RED campaign in its pages.

Magazine Madness 36: Interface RED Volume 2

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Technically Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is not a magazine. It collects some of the downloadable content made available for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game. So, its origins are not those of a magazine, but between 1990 and 1992, Prometheus Press published six issues of the magazine, Interface, which provided support for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. It this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 and future issues is picking up in providing support for the current edition of the roleplaying game. As a consequence of the issue collecting previously available downloadable content, there is a lot in the issue that is both immediately useful and can be prepared for play with relative ease. There is also some that is not, and may not make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 starts on a hard note, or rather, on a ‘hardened’ note. James Hutt begins the anthology with two connected articles—‘Hardened Mooks: break glass in case of powergaming’ and ‘Hardened Lieutenants: break glass in case of powergaming’, both of which provide tougher versions of the standard threats, mooks and lieutenants, to provide the Player Characters with more of a challenge. The former includes stats for the bodyguard, boosterganger, road ganger, and security, whilst the latter has stats for the netrunner—anti-personnel and anti-program; reclaimer chief, including a ‘lightning’ version for lieutenant who likes to fight form the front and a ‘thunder’ version’, who prefers to support from the back; and raid and siege versions of the security officer. None of these are suitable to be used against combat-orientated Player Characters, especially the lieutenants. In addition, the Game Master can customise them further with a table of complications for the mooks and tactics for the lieutenants. Further, the second article actually lists what a hardened Player Character actually looks like, so that the Game Master has a definitive ideas as to what that also looks like! Overall, solid support for when the Player Characters are finding things a little too easy.

Infamously, Night City is the site of a nuclear weapon being detonated, as well as having subject to numerous chemical spills and the ongoing effects of climate change over the years. All of which is reflected in ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ by J Gray and James Hutt gives advice and a set of tables that the Game Master can use to colour her depiction of Night City. The latter are organised by season and each has a one-in-six chance of the weather turning strange. When it does, this could be anything from a radioactive windstorm or blood rain to dust storm or blackout. These are extremes, of course, but virtually all of Night’s Weather is extreme, whether that is suffering from exposure in a cold snap or increased armour penalties in a heatwave to suffering as if poisoned and a foreign object critical injury during an ash storm if not wearing a filter mask or nasal filters or simply being exposed to a biotoxin during a blood storm! All of it is nasty and extreme, and all of it is going to make the Player Characters value days when the weather is not a danger. The article details new gear and clothing designed to deal with this weather, including a Militech Combat Umbrellas, which of course, is also an umbrella gun! The article is the first of two in the that further develops Night City as a place and gives it some verisimilitude, being the sort of thing that can be worked into a scenario cannot only add atmosphere, but also affect how a mission might be played.

Infamously, Night City is the site of a nuclear weapon being detonated, as well as having subject to numerous chemical spills and the ongoing effects of climate change over the years. All of which is reflected in ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ by J Gray and James Hutt gives advice and a set of tables that the Game Master can use to colour her depiction of Night City. The latter are organised by season and each has a one-in-six chance of the weather turning strange. When it does, this could be anything from a radioactive windstorm or blood rain to dust storm or blackout. These are extremes, of course, but virtually all of Night’s Weather is extreme, whether that is suffering from exposure in a cold snap or increased armour penalties in a heatwave to suffering as if poisoned and a foreign object critical injury during an ash storm if not wearing a filter mask or nasal filters or simply being exposed to a biotoxin during a blood storm! All of it is nasty and extreme, and all of it is going to make the Player Characters value days when the weather is not a danger. The article details new gear and clothing designed to deal with this weather, including a Militech Combat Umbrellas, which of course, is also an umbrella gun! The article is the first of two in the that further develops Night City as a place and gives it some verisimilitude.

The other is ‘Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels’ by James Hutt and J Gray, which asks the question, “Where might my character living and what is it that I am getting for rent each month?” Essentially, what can a Player Character can afford and with a few extra eurobucks afterwards, what he buy to make the place a little more homely. There are tables of locations and accompanying descriptions for both habitat types and then descriptions of potential upgrades, like some wall art, a fire safe, and even a hidden compartment.

In between, ‘Jumpstart Kit Conversion Guide: JSK adventures using core rules’, by James Hutt, Mike Pondsmith, and J Gray, addresses a problem with the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit. This is that its rules do not match those of Cyberpunk RED. The article is not simple an adaptation, but rather a rebalancing of its missions and adjustments so that it can form the basis of a starting point for a campaign. It includes advice too on how to run each of the missions in the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit. It is rare that game designers get to revisit an earlier product in their roleplaying game line—especially without the publication of an entirely new edition—but the release of the original PDF article and its inclusion here in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 gives them space to do so. The article is easier to use if the Game Master has not run the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit, but makes it more accessible and easier to use overall.

‘Daeric Sylar’s Guide to Elflines Online’ by James Hutt continues exploring the online world of the most popular MMO played via Braindance in Night City, Elflines Online. First described in ‘Elflines Online: A Segotari Rush Revolution Exclusive’ and ‘Elflines Online: Expansion Pack’ in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, this third article includes a map of the setting and a guide to levelling up in the game and when to visit the various locations in the game, plus various monsters. The level of detail in the article feels like gilding the lily, adding extra detail to a world that feels superfluous to most Cyberpunk RED campaigns. That said, Elflines can be added as an activity in the game that NPCs and Player Characters engage in as flavour, but there is nothing to stop that the Player Characters needing to play in order to find an NPC or hidden data, or even adding fantasy roleplaying game that uses the Interlock system of Cyberpunk RED.

One of the issues with Cyberpunk RED is that its technology is often genericised and that includes its guns. This is in comparison to the weapons of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., in which all of the weapons are named and branded. In part, this has been offset by the release of the Black Chrome, but that does not include weapons or piece of gears from the previous versions of the roleplaying game. This was addressed in part by ‘Old Guns Never Die: A step-by-step conversion guide for bringing weapons from Cyberpunk 2020 into Cyberpunk RED’ in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, and is continued in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 with by James Hutt’s ‘The 12 Days of Gunmas: A Cyberpunk Red Holiday Special’. As much a parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas, the article updates some classic weapons from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., such as the Arasaka WAA Bullpup Assault Weapon, Militech Crusher, and Stolbovoy ST-5 Assault Rifle. Drawn from various supplements, these are a welcome addition that add weapon variety and flavour.

Lastly, the issue gets a bit weird with ‘Exotics of 2045: There’s nothing you can’t become’. Again, written by James Hutt, this details some of the options available as part of the Biotechnica’s Bioexotics programme, which for two decades has offered a range of full body sculpts and modifications, evolving into a month-long intensive ‘Zoo camp’ that requires a fixer and money beyond the cost of any surgery done, to attend. It has become highly exclusive, but can be accessed during character creation with the purchase of an Exotic Package using non-fashion/fashionware locked money. Seventeen packages are detailed, including what each package includes and its resulting Humanity Loss. They divided between major and minor Bioexotic packages. The minor include the ‘Embrace Rodentia’ rat form, ‘LagoForm’ rabbit form, and ‘Serpentise Yourself’ snake form, whilst the major include the ‘AquaForm’ whale form, ‘Bughouse’ insect form, and ‘UrsaForm’ bear form. Added to these are the FantaForms, which represent classic fantasy biosculpts, such as with the ‘Draconic FantaForm’ and the ‘Elvish FantaForm’. All of the new cyberware for these Exotic Packages is given too, like the ‘Reflex Co-Processor’ to super enhance a character’s Reflexes and a Combat Tail which act as a Heavy Melee Weapon. All of the options here push Cyberpunk RED into the realms of the fantastic to one degree or another, even to the point where with the FantaForms, the Player Characters could find themselves in the LARP equivalent of the Elflines Online! Certainly, these provide Cyberpunk RED with an anime element not as extrovertly present in the setting.

Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 it is nice to have it in print. Some of its content is more useful than others, and some of it is going to find less favour with some Game Masters. The latter includes the articles on Elflines Online and the Exotic Biosculpts, whereas the ‘Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels’ and ‘Night City Weather: The Sky Is Crying Blood’ articles will add flavour and verisimilitude to a Game Master’s campaign, however they are used. Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 is a mixed bag in terms of content, but not quality of content. There is definitely something in its pages that every Cyberpunk RED Game Master is going to find useful.

Hope Reborn

Back in 1991, R. Talsorian Games, Inc. published Tales From The Forlorn Hope. This was not one, but three things. First, it was a special edition of the in-game magazine, Solo of Fortune, detailing a bar in Night City founded by veterans of the Central American Wars that provided a hangout, a sanctuary, and a refuge for themselves, other Solos, and Cops from 2011 onwards. Second, it was a setting supplement for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., one which the Edgerunners can turn into a base of operations for themselves. Third, it was an anthology of missions for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. suitable for Edgerunners who visit the bar often or even find a home there, enabling them to interact with the regulars, many of whom are featured in the Solo of Fortune Special Edition. That though was in 2011 and a lot has happened in the decades since. What of The Forlorn Hope in 2045, in the Time of the Red?

Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is a supplement for Cyberpunk Red: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future that brings the history of The Forlorn Hope up to date before presenting a whole new chapter that will involve the Edgerunners in first losing and then restoring hope and happiness. This is in the form of a six-part campaign which does two things. One is provide the means for the Edgerunners to effect change, if only at a small scale, and the other is to provide a street level campaign.

The six parts of the campaign are organised as is standard for scenarios for Cyberpunk RED. Each opens with a plot flowchart and then with a ‘Rumours’ table, which as the campaign progresses, begins to work in events that occurred previously and the Edgerunners will have been involved in, as well as hinting at what is to come. It is followed by the ‘Background’ to the scenario, which can be read out to the players, and ‘The Rest of the Story’ for the Game Master’s eyes only, as is ‘The Setting’ and ‘The Opposition’. ‘The Hook’ describes how the Edgerunners get involved, ‘Developments’ and ‘Climax’ detail the individual beats, whilst ‘Resolution’ provides options on how the scenario comes to end depending on whether or not the Edgerunners succeed or fail. ‘Downtime’ covers what the Edgerunners can do between missions and even prepare for the next one. In addition, there is general advice on running the campaign, which suggests that the Game Master looks for possible hooks in the Edgerunners’ Lifepaths, created during character generation, to tie one or more of them into The Forlorn Hope. Despite both of this explanation and advice, what Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn does lack is an overview of the campaign and an explanation of what is going on. What this means is that the Game Master does not really learn who the antagonists of the campaign are until she reads about them in the campaign itself, which makes it just a little bit more difficult to prepare. All six chapters include an indication of their running time.

What Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn does include is ‘A Tale Of Hope’ by William Moss. Told through the eyes of Aurora ‘Rory’ O’Reilly, livecasting journalist and daughter of C.J. O’Reilly, the famed Solo of Fortune journalist who wrote the original special edition, this introduces The Forlorn Hope and gives its history from its founding in 2011 to 2045 as well as its notable staff and clientele. Now only part of The Forlorn Hope is mapped at this point—and it is the only part that the campaign itself requires—so if the Game Master does want to connect the Edgerunners to the bar before the campaign itself begins, then she will need access to a copy of Tales From The Forlorn Hope.

The campaign itself opens with ‘The Angel’s Share’ by Eddy Webb. Co-owner of The Forlorn Hope, Marianne Freeman, asks the Edgerunners to help with an ‘XBD’, or ‘Extreme Brain Dance’ Dealer, who is threatening her staff and family after she kicked out of the bar for attempting to sell his wares to her customers. She wants them to put him out of business, rather than killed. It is a simple straightforward job, but when the Egderunners return, the action and the campaign switches up a gear. What they hear—and find—when they get back is that The Forlorn Hope has blown up! The Egderunners have another fight on their hands, this time to rescue those still trapped in the rubble of The Forlorn Hope. This is literally handled as a fight, which does feel odd, but it is actually topped off by an actual fight as allies of the ‘XBD’ dealer take their revenge. The rescue attempt is against the clock so the first part of campaign has a frantic feel and pace.

Although The Forlorn Hope is no more, the owners decide they will rebuild and this is the thrust of the campaign proper and asks the Edgerunners to help. This leads into a couple of fun chapters in which the Edgerunners first find a new location and then conduct a long-term reconnaissance of the neighbourhood. In ‘Real Estate Rumble’ by Paris Arrowsmith and Tracie Hearne, the Edgerunners get to work for a property dealer by the name of Jack Skorkowsky as he tries to find Marianne Freeman a suitable new site. Skorkowsky’s properties have been beset by a series of pranks and odd occurrences which are impeding work on them. If the players and their Edgerunners have played scenarios from Tales of the RED: Street Stories and Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, they will likely recognise the threat here. By the end, Jack Skorkowsky will have found a property, enabling the Edgerunners to move into the area in Linda Evans’ ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ and check it out. There are some really fun little encounters here, such as having to rescue a drunken student trapped in the giant leaves of a carnivorous plant being grown as an experiment by the Biotechnica and having to be an emergency replacement team to play the local Roller Derby team. All of these embody the street level nature of the campaign and do so very well.

The preparation for the opening of The Forlorn Hope anew, begins with Melissa Wong’s ‘The Devil’s Cut’. This is a classic heist style scenario in which the Edgerunners go to work for a veteran conman in an attempt to recover some bottles of genuine alcohol, which she believes have been stolen by a special operation run by the local office of a corporation and are being auctioned off. The Edgerunners have to investigate the operation and its staff, plan the heist, infiltrate the launch party—because of course, there is a launch party—and make off with the bottles of alcohol. Lastly—or rather penultimately—‘Hope’s Calling!!!’ by Chris Spivey takes the Edgerunners through the preparation proper for the reopening of The Forlorn Hope. They are taken on by the bar as combination roadies, techies, gophers, and security going through a checklist of things that Marianne wants addressing. This includes getting the right cocktail ingredients, technical checks, and more. As they work on checking these, the Edgerunners discover that someone is actually attempting to sabotage the opening night, so it becomes a race to both undo the efforts of the saboteurs and identify who they are. As soon as they manage that, it is time for the opening night. The Edgerunners’ efforts to undo the sabotage will play an unexpectedly big role in this as the bad guys make a direct assault on The Forlorn Hope. This plays out as a cross between a massive brawl and firefight, which is essentially a make-or-break night for The Forlorn Hope. It has its own mechanic for handling this mass combat, which is kept fairly simple, with plenty of room for player input and room for them to sway the fight.

Although ‘Hope’s Calling!!!’ feels very much like the end of the campaign, it actually is not. In Frances Stewart’s ‘Ripping the Ripper’, the Edgerunners are asked to take revenge on the people who actually blew up the original The Forlorn Hope. This requires them to sneak into ‘The Hot Zone’, the geographical centre of Night City where the tactical nuclear device was detonated almost atop Arasaka Towers and triggered the events of the Time of the Red, and either set the perpetrator up or gun him down! How the Edgerunners go about it is up to the players, but they need to do it without The Forlorn Hope itself being blamed for it. It is a solid ending to the campaign.

One consequence of Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn being a street level campaign, is that the Edgerunners are kept away from the wider plot. That is, who targeted The Forlorn Hope for destruction and who wants the new bar to fail? Neither are connected and neither become apparent until the last chapters of the campaign. How much of an issue this is, really depends on the players, and how much umbrage they might feel at being sidelined from what would be the main plots—or plots—in any other campaign. Essentially, what is really going on is that Edgerunners who are better and more experienced than those of the players are dealing with them. However, the players being players are likely to want answers to those questions and so the Game Master might want to have some answers and some updates as to what is going on and the owners and staff of The Forlorn Hope have learned.

Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn comes to a close with an Appendix of new rules. They include rules for ‘Hacking Agents’, ‘Vehicle Chases’, ‘Roller Derby’, ‘Flash of Luck’, and ‘Headquarters’. The majority of these are fairly general in their application and thus have life beyond the pages of the campaign. ‘Hacking Agents’ enables Netrunners and Techs to remotely hack the devices that everyone carries in the Time of the Red, so opening up options in accessing security and information and so on as well as increasing the versatility of both Roles. ‘Vehicle Chases’ are quick and dirty rules for handling chases and complement the rules for vehicle combat in Cyberpunk RED, relying primarily on Edgerunner Drive skill. The rules cover standard manoeuvres as well as ramming and passenger actions that can help the person behind the wheel. ‘Flash of Luck’ brings a narrative element into play, letting a player spend his Edgerunner’s Luck Points to retroactively bring items and events into play to provide an advantage when the unexpected occurs and so prevent heists, infiltration, and con jobs from becoming extended planning sessions rather than actually playing them through. Playing them out as flashbacks is optional, of course, but whilst ‘Flash of Luck’ is designed to work with the heist of ‘The Devil’s Cut’, it will also work in other situations too.

Other new rules are designed to work with the various Jobs in the campaign and are thus quite specific. ‘Headquarters’ is designed for the long term. It enables the Edgerunners to build their own base of operation, spending Improvement Points earned as a group to add things like an Evidence Wall, Medbay, or Server Room. There is advice too on how to use The Forlorn Hope as a base of operations, Improvement Points being spent to buy ready access to the bar’s facilities rather than actually build them. The oddest rules are for ‘Roller Derby’. They detail how to play the sport which takes centre stage in the ‘Wheels on Fire’ Job from the ‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ chapter of the campaign. These allow the Game Master and her players to play out their Edgerunners’ participation in that Job, but they could be useful in other ways. They could be used to handle street battles or chases on skates, but they could also be used as the basis for a campaign in which the Edgerunners actually form their own Roller Derby team!

Physically, Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is well presented and organised, although it does lack an index. For the most part, the artwork is excellent and the cartography is good.

Although it does feel a little clumsy in places in terms of its mechanics, Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn provides a really fun street level campaign that offers a good mix of roleplaying, combat, and technical challenges, a variety of really different missions and jobs that will keep the players on their toes, and ultimately the opportunity for the players and their Edgerunners to really make a difference. Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is an impressive first campaign for Cyberpunk RED that delivers on what it promises to do.

Your Edgerunner Entry

The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit has a lot of work to do—and in more than one direction. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., this is the starter set for the publisher’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game—most recently seen with Cyberpunk RED, but based on the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners animated series, which itself is based on the computer game, . So, what it has to do is introduce both fans of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 to roleplaying and introduce fans of Cyberpunk RED to the advanced new world of the Night City of the 2070s. The good news is that The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit at least comes with everything necessary to do that. Open up the box and the first thing is the introductory sheet, which introduces both the genre, what a tabletop roleplaying game is, an overview of what is in the box, and keywords. Underneath this is the ‘Edgerunner’s Handbook’, ‘Rulebook’, ‘The Jacket’, ‘Edgerunner Sheets’, ‘Maps’, and ‘Tokens’. There is a pair of ten-sided dice and four six-sided dice—done in the signature colours of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, chromium yellow and green—and a set of plastic stands for the stand-ups. What this gives you all together is an introduction to the genre and the setting of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077, the rules to run the roleplaying game in this period, a complete scenario, and seven pre-generated Player Characters, all ready to play not just the scenario in The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit, but also those available to download.

If the ‘Introduction Sheet’ gets the reader started with the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit, the ‘Edgerunner’s Handbook’ is everything the reader needs to gets started on the setting. Running to forty pages, it gives a quick guide to the roleplaying game’s seven Roles, its history, the technology of the future—in particular cyberware and the Net, a guide to Night City and life in the free port on the California coast, and more. The history runs from the collapse of the USA in the 1990s through the Third and Fourth Corporate Wars and the Time of the Red to the arrival of an Arasaka supercarrier at Night City, the rise of David Martinez as an Edgerunner, and the clash of Militech and Arasaka forces once again in Night City. Effectively, what this does is bridge the decades between Cyberpunk RED and Cyberpunk 2077 and in doing so, provide the background for the latter, whether the reader is a player of the computer game wanting more background or a player of the roleplaying game wanting to discover what happens in the future in readiness to play either Cyberpunk 2077 or The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit. In addition, there are descriptions of the cast of characters from the animated series. However, there are no stats for them, and the pre-generated Edgerunners consist of entirely different characters. There is no doubt that fans of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will probably be disappointed by this. That said, there are good reasons for this given the events of the animated series. Hopefully, R. Talsorian Games, Inc. will address this issue in a later release that explores the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners worlds of Cyberpunk 2077 in more detail.

The thirty-eight page ‘Rulebook’ in The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit covers everything needed to play its contents—and more. Mechanically, it uses the Interlock System. In general, for his Edgerunner to do anything, a player will roll a ten-sided die and add the Edgerunner’s Stat and Skill (or Role Ability) to the result in order to beat a Difficulty Value. This Difficulty Value is fifteen for an Everyday task, seventeen for a Professional task, twenty-one for Heroic, and so on. Dice can explode—rolls of ten— and enable a player to keep rolling and adding to his total as long as he keeps rolling ten, and they can also Implode—rolls of one—forces him to roll again and subtract from the total, but just the once. In combat, chases, and so on, the rolls tend to be opposed, both sides rolling and adding their character’s Stat and appropriate Skill. The Difficulty Value for ranged combat is determined primarily by range. The rules cover the effects of cover, armour, critical injuries, face-offs, and so on. This is little different from Cyberpunk RED, but there are major important differences which reflect the changes in technology between Cyberpunk RED and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077.

In the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit, the big changes are to Netrunning and weapons. The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit lacks the space to devote to a complete set of rules for netrunning and hacking, but what it gives instead, is ‘Quickhacking’. This enables on the spot hacking by a Netrunner, but not just of local systems—vehicles, doors, terminals, and so on. No, with a Quickhack, a Netrunner can, from a short distance, hack the Neuroport that everyone in 2077 has fitted as standard. Once a Netrunner has managed to jack in and breach any Self-ICE that the target has had installed, he can then carry out Quickhacks like ‘Impair Movement’ to slow the target down, ‘Overheat’ to set him on fire, ‘Lure’ him to investigate another location, cause ‘Synapse Burnout’ for more damage, turn the target into a ‘Puppet’ so that he shoots himself or a colleague, or force a ‘System Reset’ so that he is temporarily unconscious. The trend with Cyberpunk roleplaying games is to put the Netrunner on the spot where the action is happening. The Quickhack rules do that and more, letting the Netrunner get inside a target’s head and mess with them and so be part of combat, but rely upon a skill that he specialises in rather than a gun. Difficulty Values are provided for all of these Quickhacks and more.

Weapons are suddenly interesting again in The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit. They were not in Cyberpunk RED. What The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit does is again, add the technology seen in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077. Weapons can now be Power, Smart, or Tech Weapons. A Power Weapon increases the damage done by a Critical Injury and the wielder can ricochet shots off cover to hit targets that otherwise cannot be successfully hit. A Smart Weapon grants the wielder a bonus and allows the use of Smart Ammunition, which ignores penalties due to visual obscurement, plus if the shot misses, a reroll to hit is allowed, but at a much lower chance. A Tech Weapon comes with a scope and can be charged at the cost of a Move Action to make a single round capable of piercing thin cover and ignoring half of its protective value. Not only does the ‘Rulebook’ provide the means to adapt the weapons from Cyberpunk RED into Power, Smart, or Tech Weapons, it also includes weapons from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077. These include the Militech M-10AF Lexington, the Arasaka HJKE-11 Yukimura, and others. There is also a selection of Cyberware included such as David’s Experimental Sandevistan as seen in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Monowire and the Mantis Blade made famous by Cyberpunk 2077, and as the Gorilla Arm which enhances the user’s strength.

The ‘Rulebook’ does have a section called ‘The 2070s in Cyberpunk RED’ which gives all of the basics that the Game Master and her players need to adjust from Cyberpunk RED to The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit and Cyberpunk 2077. This includes some tweaks to the Roles to take account of resource accessibility, rules for Neuroports and Quickhacks, direct Netrunning, and potential sources of Humanity Loss other than installing Cyberware. The new arms and cyberware are listed here too. This is a thoroughly useful section, providing great support for fans of Cyberpunk RED coming to this new version and easing them mechanically into the changes.

The scenario in The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit is called ‘The Jacket’. The forty-page book and adventure is supported by a set of tokens for its NPCs and standees for the pre-generated Edgerunners. These are used with the three maps that are included in the adventure. These are double-sided and depict places such as a car park, a storage depot, a normal street, and others. They are overlaid with a 2 cm square grid, so they do feel a little tight. There is also a separate map of Night City. The pre-generated Edgerunners each have a four-page dossier with stats and skills on the front along with an illustration, descriptions of important cyberware and weapons on the inside pages and a quick breakdown of possible rolls that might be needed during play. They include a Solo, a Tech, a Fixer, a Medtech, a Netrunner, a Nomad, and a Rocker. What none of them have is any background. Part of preparing to play ‘The Jacket’ is the players getting together and rolling their Edgerunners’ Lifepaths to determine their backgrounds and connections. The scenario itself takes place after the events of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and is designed as follow up. The Edgerunners have formed their own crew and pick up a job that starts out in the Badlands just beyond the borders of Night City, and it begins with a fight outside a storage unit! The scenario is a MacGuffin hunt for something left over from the events of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and it will take the Edgerunners around various locations in Night City. Written using R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Beat Chart system and a breakdown of this is provided on the back of ‘The Jacket’. Full stats are provided for the NPCs as expected and there is advice throughout the whole adventure intended for the Game Master who is running her first game. There are some random encounters, an opportunity for downtime, run-in with both Arasaka and the NCPD, opportunities to make some allies, and of course, chases and gunfights. It is a good mix, the adventure is a solid affair that should provide two to three sessions’ worth of play.

Physically, The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit is well written and easy to read. The layout is clean and tidy, but it is lightly illustrated.

The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit has a lot to do—introduce fans of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to roleplaying, fans of Cyberpunk 2077 to tabletop roleplaying, and fans of Cyberpunk RED to the period of Cyberpunk 2077—and the good news is that it does all of these and does them very well. The transition between Cyberpunk RED and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is nicely handled and the background included in The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit pleasingly serves everyone. It also pushes the story of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on, exploring events which take place as a result of those from the animated series. All together, the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit is a well put together combination that serves all of the fans and provides a couple of sessions of entertaining and exciting gaming.

A Cyberpunk Character Collection

Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is not just a ‘A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red’. It is much more than that. Within the ‘Time of the Red’, the future period between the classic Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, is a collection of data dossiers stolen by Edgerunners from Danger Girl, the foremost, most mediatised cat-girl themed premiere investigation and security NeoCorp working in Night City, actually run by an Arasaka scion! Out of game, it is a collection and short examination of fifteen different factions within the city, details of over one hundred NPCs—complete with stats and biographies, NPC creation guidelines which expand upon those found in Cyberpunk RED, and lastly, the presentation of a scenario involving a new and secret faction. This is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, published by by R. Talsorian Games, Inc. that can be used in multiple ways. The most obvious is as a simple collection of threats, and perhaps, in the case of some of the gangers included, such as the infamous clown-themed Bozos and the previously Arasaka-backed Tyger Claws, that may be so. But these NPCs have lives and motivations beyond being mere fodder for the guns of the Player Character Edgerunners. They can all be sources of information, they can be sources of employment, and some like Trauma Team, can even be sources of help. Then again, they need not be met when they or the Player Characters are on the clock—they have lives too, and those lives can also start for the Player Characters during character generation. Thus, Danger Gal Dossier is a source of NPCs that can be plugged into a Player Character’s Lifepath during character generation to create ready made relationships, if not potentiation scenario hooks. There is one final use of the various factions in the collection and that is as set of factions with Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone from Monster Fight Club. This is further strengthened by the members of the Monster Fight Club being included in the book as a faction!

Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is neatly organised. Each faction is given a general description, a description of its base of operations, recent history, resources, and goals. This is done as a single sheet and then is followed up by detailed writeups of several members of the faction, again given a single page each. The NPCs are divided into four broad categories—mook, lieutenant, mini-boss, and boss. Where appropriate, there are links—including page numbers—to other members of faction, strengthening their connections and relationships. Each NPC also includes a good illustration and full set of stats that are easy to read and bring into play. Of course, the stats can be used more than once if the Game Master wants another NPC. All she has to provide another name and some other background. If there is anything missing from the basic guides to each faction it is any discussion of their tactics and how each might react under particular circumstances. The Game Master than will have to develop this herself.

For example, the Bozos, updated here after their activities detailed in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, are a Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. classic updated to Cyberpunk RED. They are presented as having broken up into multiple circuses, all trying to out-prank each other and all with an almost anarchic approach to motivation. The Hardened Boss detailed is Big Top, who wants to outdo and thinks he has outdone the original gang leader, The Great Bozo, and as well as planning new pranks likes to perform radical surgery with the help of his extra cyberarms fitted with medtech. Blammo is a veteran Boss who likes to use explosives and give often snarky advice—sometimes to Big Top; Jester, a Mini-Boss who was a former acrobat before becoming a kick-murder Bozzo after a big accident; Tomfool is a Hardened Lieutenant who was already bioscuplted as a clown on the underground bloodsport scene before being recruited into the Bozos by Big Top; Cenwit is a Lieutenant with an actual clown heritage and a hatred of the Voodoo Boys; the Dead Ringers are both Lieutenants and also sisters, one all flashy and bling with grenades, the other silent and stealthy; Finale is also a Lieutenant, a former street who got his jaw wired shut, which the Bozzos found funny enough to recruit him and then even funnier when they annoy him to the point his anger kicks in; Burt the Squirt is a Hardened Mook who lost his hair in an industrial accident and is obsessed with acid and uses an acid-squirting gun to inflict baldness on his victims; Dunce is a Mook recruited for the vent which led to the Bozzo civil war and has managed to graduate to full Bozzo; and finally, The Fool is a Mook undergoing initiation and is given the worst equipment, brightest gear, and a bag to wear over his head!  Throughout there are details here and there to suggest that this bunch of Bozos are not one big, happy family, with tensions that perhaps the Player Characters might take advantage of. This though is just one Bozo gang and the Game Master can easily models others on it or use it in conjunction with the Screamsheets in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack if she has not already.

If the Bozos are one of the larger factions, or at least of the factions with the most members detailed in the supplement, Network 54 is the shortest with just three. They include Fiona Hayes, the seemingly ageless investigative reporter; Angle, her bodyguard—or is that bodyguard for himself or network 54; and Stringer, cameraman who happens to know too much. The relationship between the three is even tighter than those for the Bozos, but not always a good one and the revelations given here highlight the data that the Danger Gal neocorp was collecting.

Other factions in the supplement include the Danger Gal Puma Squad, all cat themed; The Digital Divas, a band whose hit Burn It Down got taken up by arsonists everywhere; Maelstrom, a traditional pre-Fourth Corporate War boostergang which survived and had to rebuild; the officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD, including Gustav, a Custom Security Canine; the Sightseers, a Nomad squad which recently caught the attention of the worst officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD; whereas Edgerunners is not so much a faction as a collection of individuals. Perhaps the oddest entry here is Generation Red, a YoGang consisting of a mixture of children with mostly absentee parents and orphans seeking to avoid the attention of adults, but able to protect themselves if bothered, including one girl having borrowed her parents’ rocket launcher! Danger Gal is thinking of recruiting them. There are notes here too how to use kids and YoGangs in a Cyberpunk RED campaign, including advice on handling the subject matter with the Game Master’s players.

The initial design aim of Danger Gal Dossier was use only gear, equipment, and cyberware from the core rulebook for Cyberpunk RED. However, this has been achieved! So what the designers have done is include the full details of the equipment in the supplement no matter where it was taken from. This includes Interface RED Volume One and Interface RED Volume Two as well as Micro Chrome. This is a very nice touch, although some might grumble about the reprints. It just the two pages though. The ‘NPC Creation Guidelines’ following this is as useful as you would want it to be.

Lastly, ‘The Incident’ is a Mission Brief which can easily be slotted into a campaign. The Edgerunners are hired to conduct an investigation into a recent break-in and in the process get caught up in the activities of one of the factions detailed in Danger Gal Dossier as well as discovering a whole new one! The Mission Brief makes good use of the contents of the supplement without wasting them and actually ties into the incident that initiates the whole book.

Physically, Danger Gal Dossier is very nicely presented. The book is well written, the artwork good—especially the NPC illustrations, and there is a useful list of the NPCs at the back of the book. There notes too in the sidebar giving links to information in other books. It should also be pointed out that although the NPC write-ups are relatively short, there is a fair bit of detail to them and they contain snippets of background that add to the setting of Night City.

Danger Gal Dossier is such a versatile book. The contents of Danger Gal Dossier are well written and easy to use, whether the Game Master wants to throw a threat at her players and their characters, possible employment, or simply someone to interreact with, it really gives a lot for her to play with. For a Night City campaign, Danger Gal Dossier is not just a versatile book, but a highly useful one. 

Red Reports

Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an anthology of missions for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of the classic Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It provides the Game Master with nine—technically eight because the last two in the book make up a two-part adventure—scenarios which take place in and around the Night City of 2045. The scenarios are all easy to add to an ongoing campaign, as well as to mix and match with missions of the Game Master’s own devising or Screamsheets from a supplement such as the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack. Published by R. Talsorian Games, Inc., the nine missions will find the Edgerunners chasing vampires, investigating a kidnapping, working a film set, diving off the coast of Night City, making a delivery run of the best threads in town, hunting down a deadly A.I. program gone rogue, fending off an attacker who is hunting Edgerunner teams, investigating murder on the virtual club floor, and ultimately tracking down the perpetrator of the murder! Whilst offering a wide variety of mission types, they all adhere to the same format as seen in the core rules for Cyberpunk RED. This is the Beat Chart system which breaks a Mission down into a ‘Background’—intended to read aloud to the players, ‘The Rest of Story’ which summarises the Mission for the Game Master, ‘The Opposition’ which describes the threats the Edgerunners will face, and ‘The Hook’, which is what will draws them into the Mission. The remainder is divided into Developments—non-action beats, and Cliffhangers—action beats, before coming to a close with the Mission’s ‘Climax’ and ‘Resolution’. These are all labels as much as beats and of course, the nature of each beat will vary from Mission to Mission.

From the start, there are a couple of issues with the anthology. One is that the Beat Chart system does read a little oddly in that ‘The Hook’, the beat which covers how the Edgerunners get involved in the Mission, comes after several beats. So, the Missions need to be read carefully and their format adjusted to in order for the Game Master to get used to the format. The other issue that a lot of the context and stats for the nine Missions are not placed with the individual Missions, but in a set of three appendices at the back of the book. ‘Mooks and Defences’ provides the stats for the generic threats that can be encountered in the various Missions; ‘Locations’ marks every place and location visited by the nine Missions; and ‘Biographies’ provides thumbnail backgrounds for all of the named NPCs in the nine Missions. This includes the maitre’d at a fancy restaurant in the second scenario! Thankfully each entry also tells the Game Master which of the Missions they appear in or are mentioned in. Not all of them have stat blocks, but they do, it is in the Missions where they appear. Having the biographies all in one place sort of works for easy reference, but separating them from their stats, not as much…

Tales of the RED: Street Stories opens with ‘A Night at the Opera – Darkness and Desire in Night City’. Night City’s University District has been beset by a rash of disappearances of young women over the past four weeks, but to date neither Campus Security nor Night City Police Department have made any progress. So the father of the latest victim hires the Edgerunners to investigate and find his daughter. Canvassing the campus—which involves some fun encounters with members of the student body—points to the involvement of a poser gang, the Philharmonic Vampyres, who embrace the whole vampire aesthetic—fangs, pale skin, Goth-style clothing, and pale skin. The best way to contact the Philharmonic Vampyres is to attend one of their parties. Unfortunately, when the Edgerunners do, the event erupts into a gang-on-gang gunfight! The Edgerunners do need to pay attention to the ordinary events going on around them to get the most out of the scenario, but this is a fairly, direct simple scenario underneath its gothic trappings.

If the first Mission in the anthology looked weird, then the second, ‘Agents Desire – The Case of the Missing Girlfriend’, actually is weird. A fixer—who may be just little too impatient for the Edgerunners, if not their players—puts the Edgerunners in touch with a high-ranking corporate whose partner was kidnapped from one of Night City’s top restaurants, La Lune Bleu, and he fears that he will only get her back if he gives up company secrets. The biggest problem for the Edgerunners is actually getting past the restaurant’s snooty maitre’d, and numerous options are suggested, including buying the right quality outfits and booking a table, hiring on as waiting staff, and so on. This presents a great social challenge for the Edgerunners and their players. Once inside, they can get further information and the story takes a turn for the strange, which foreshadows, but is not connected to, the events of Cyberpunk 2077.

The third Mission is different again. ‘A Bucket Full of Popcorn-Flavoured Kibble – Lights, Camera, Drama!’ gives the chance for the Edgerunners to hit the silver screen and be extras in the latest film by one of burgeoning Addis Ababa film studios. Not only do the Edgerunners get to make money from this job, there is opportunity aplenty for them to make money on the side. These include tracking down a supply of actual organic food for the film’s picky star, plant a listening device for a sleazy journalist, provide cybertech support, make a delivery for the film’s other star following his divorce, and so on. The Edgerunners are free to pick and choose which tasks they undertake, but the Mission has a picaresque quality to it, as the Edgerunners bounce from one small task to the next. There are some nice rewards too if the Edgerunners do play it—mostly—straight and promise of extra work too.

The change in the nature and style of the Missions continues with ‘Drummer and the Whale – Treasure Beneath the Sea’, in which the Edgerunners are hired for an easy job in—or under—Night City Bay. Their employer, whose hobby is looking for patterns in in the remnants of the global Net which got shattered during the Fourth Corporate War, has detected a pattern off the coast of Night City. With limited funds, he hires them to locate some washed up cargo container, which means searching the shore, part-shanty town, part-waste dump, all one environmental hazard. It seems that something is operating on the bed of the bay and shipping containers ashore on a regular basis. The question is, what is it, how dangerous is it, and how much will the right people pay for it? The aquatic nature of the Mission is challenging in itself and is in parts more technical than the earlier Missions, which should challenge the Edgerunners’ Tech and Netrunner. Overall, the Mission has a claustrophobic, dated feel to it as traditional rivalries straight out of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. surface in Night City Bay and threaten a legal incident!

‘Haven’t Got a Stitch to Wear – A Suit Worth Dying For’ is more straightforward. High-end tailors Torrell and Chiang have proved popular with Night City’s rich and famous and demand for their suits and outfits has grown and grown in recent months. The demand is such that Torrell and Chiang have been forced to out-source minor alterations as their own staff are too busy working on new commissions, but that solution has gone awry when the couriers they normally use stop doing deliveries. With a growing number of impatient clients, the tailors hire the Edgerunners to find out why. The problem is that the couriers have competition. The Mission covers most eventualities, including the Edgerunners dealing with the problem, siding with the competition, or even setting themselves up as the competition. In whatever way the Mission is resolved, the Edgerunners do get to look at how Night City’s small business economy works and potentially make some contacts.

‘Reaping the Reaper – The Call is Coming From Inside Your Head!’ is a classic Cyberpunk scenario. A Night City urban legend tells of a rogue A.I. known as The Reaper, which body-hops Netrunner after Netrunner killing them one by one, only turns out that there is very much a basis of truth to the legend. This is a good scenario to run if the Edgerunners have played through ‘Digital Divas Burn It Down’ and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ Missions from the Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, especially for Tech or Netrunner Edgerunners. However, it is potentially problematic in a number of ways. First, it is combat heavy in comparison to the other scenarios in Tales of the RED: Street Stories. Second, the Edgerunners are accompanied by a pair of NPCs, one a Solo, the other a Tech, which are there to cover the Edgerunners if they fail. Their presence definitely gives the Game Master more to keep track of, potentially undermines the efforts of the Edgerunners, and feels clumsy in terms of storytelling.

‘Staying Vigilant – Three Crews Dead, Will Yours Be Next?’ brings the action to the Edgerunners. It starts with them being invited to the Afterlife, the bar from the computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, as opposed to the Forlorn Hope, where they have been meeting previously. Trace Santiago, the Media and son of famed Nomad Santiago, wants help in investigating the recent deaths of three Edgerunner crews. With his media drone in tow, the Edgerunners need must battle their way past Night City’s Hot Zone to locate the ‘killer’. Like the previous Mission, this is combat orientated, but is more nuanced.

It seems like they are being plagued by vampires when another group of them seems to have committed murder at Delirium, a virtuality club, on the Edgerunners’ night out in ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’. With a body on the dance floor, their night is over and their reputation too when they are framed for the death. This is a murder mystery that builds into a conspiracy, with the vampire posers, who turn out to be homeless street children, holding some of the initial answers. There is a great contrast here as the story switches from a grubby virtual reality dance club where everyone wears visors to view the night as one of five different environments—Dark Cabaret, Deathpunk, Horrorpunk, Skatepunk, or Synthpunk—to the squalid home of the street children, and then again, as the mother of the murder victim, a rich corporate, gets involved. This is most complex of the Missions in the anthology and the most adult in tone, and that continues in the Mission’s sequel, the last Mission in the anthology. ‘One Red Night – The Final Curtain Falls’ picks up where ‘Bathed in Red – A Night of Fun or Night of Terror?’ left off, involves yet more of the murder victim’s family, and comes to a close in bloody, physical confrontation with the true perpetrator of the murders.

Physically, Tales of the RED: Street Stories is well presented with excellent artwork and cartography. It needs an edit here and there, but the Missions themselves are easy to read and digest.

What is so good about Tales of the RED: Street Stories is the diversity of Missions and stories in the anthology. Yes, there is a Mission involving a rogue killer A.I., which is classic cyberpunk and consequently a cliché, but the majority of the Missions will first surprise the Game Master and then her players with the situations their Edgerunners will find themselves in and having to resolve. Nor do they always focus on combat, though there is plenty of that as well as solutions to the Missions which involve means other than force. Although some are better than others, there is not a single bad Mission in the pages of Tales of the RED: Street Stories, the best including becoming couriers for a tailoring firm, working a film set, diving for salvage, and more. Tales of the RED: Street Stories is an inventive and challenging anthology of scenarios for the Cyberpunk RED which gives the Game Master a great range of choice to choose from. In fact, the choice is so good that she will probably end up running most of them!

Magazine Madness 20: Interface RED Volume 1

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

—oOo—

Technically Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is not a magazine. It collects some of the downloadable content made available for Cyberpunk RED , the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game. So, its origins are not those of a magazine, but between 1990 and 1992, Prometheus Press published six issues of the magazine, Interface, which provided support for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. It this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 and future issues is picking up in providing support for the current edition of the roleplaying game. As a consequence of the issue collecting previously available downloadable content, there is a lot in the issue that is both immediately useful and can be prepared for play with relative ease. There is also some that is not, and may not make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 opens with ‘Old Guns Never Die: A step-by-step conversion guide for bringing weapons from Cyberpunk 2020 into Cyberpunk RED’ by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray. One of the issues with Cyberpunk RED is that its technology is often genericised and that includes its guns. This is in comparison to the weapons of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., in which all of the weapons are named and branded. In part, this has been offset by the release of the Black Chrome, but that does not include weapons or piece of gears from the previous versions of the roleplaying game. Which is where this article comes in, providing a step-by-step process that enables a Game Master to take a design from the previous editions of the roleplaying game and bring it up to Cyberpunk RED. The article is nicely supported by an example and enables the Game Master to loot her old sourcebooks for material just as the Player Characters can loot the city and beyond for old technology.

‘Red Chrome Cargo: A Cyberpunk Red Screamsheet’ by Cody Pondsmith is the single adventure in the magazine. Tensions have come to the boil in Night City’s Combat Zone as two gangs, the neo-fascist Red Chrome Legion and the heavily cybered Iron Sights, the Player Characters are connected by a fixer. His clients wants them to rob a train and steal a Red Chrome Legion shipment. In other words, this is a train heist, and it is as simple as that. The Player Characters have to get from one train to the target train, deal with any opposition, and bring the goods back. This is all action and combat, though the mission definitely requires a Netrunner. Although simple, the mission is nicely detailed and the Screamsheet makes a great handout. The mission will also make a decent demonstration scenario and so could be run at a convention, and it is easy to add to a campaign.

Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray further provide ‘Single Shot Pack: Pregen Characters and NET Architectures’. This presents ten pre-generated Player Characters (or detailed NPCs as required) and six ready-to-use NET Architectures for the group’s Netrunner to hack. There is one Player Character for each of the roleplaying game’s archetypes and the NET Architectures include ones for conapt security, clinic security, a small corporate facility, and even a vault for anyone who likes to lock their valuables away. All of these are designed for use on the go. The NET Architectures are easy to use and the ten pre-generated Player Characters can easily be used as replacement characters, as NPCs, or even in conjunction with the ‘Red Chrome Cargo: A Cyberpunk Red Screamsheet’ for the demonstration game.

‘Cyberchairs: New options for mobility’ by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and Sara Thompson detail two models of cyberchair. The Mecurius Cyberchair is wheeled, whilst the Spider Cyberchair has legs. Both require operation, but both can plugged into operated cybernetically of course. Their inclusion opens up options in terms of representation of the disabled in the Time of the Red and enables their characters to become actively involved in missions and adventures.

The longest entry in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is actually two entries, dedicated to the same in-game MMORPG played via Braindance. ‘Elflines Online: A Segotari Rush Revolution Exclusive’ by James Hutt and Mike Pondsmith explains what it is, whilst ‘Elflines Online: Expansion Pack’ by James Hutt and Melissa Wong adds further background—online and offline—as pre-generated ready-to-play characters for the MMORPG, to the game within a game. Essentially this pair of articles is about a popular leisure activity in the Time of the Red, that the Player Characters really can play if they want to, almost as if they were roleplaying like the players. It has rules for in-game character creation, but otherwise uses the mechanics of Cyberpunk RED. The articles suggest the game as a platform where the Player Characters met, can encounter other NPCs, or simply as diversion. It is an interesting option that adds a layer of both immersion and complication, and that perhaps means it may not be suitable for every Cyberpunk RED campaign.

Lastly, the all-new article in the magazine is ‘All About Drones: Your Amazing Animatronic Friends!’ Written by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray, this adds the element of biomimicry to drone design, such as the giraffe-like Zhirafa GRAF3 construction drone (there is even a junior model, My First GRAF3 for the budding engineer to build) and the Savannah Panther patrol drones. The five drones here have a generally utilitarian to them despite the thematic design, and they are all solid additions which add colour and flavour to the streets of Night City.

Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The map for the screamsheet is somewhat scrappy, but the artwork elsewhere is excellent, and the shorter page count means that that it feels as if there is more of it.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 it is nice to have it in print. There is much that is useful and helpful in its pages, but none of it is absolutely necessary to expand either the rules or setting of Cyberpunk RED, and some of it, will be simply labelled as silly by some gaming groups. Overall, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is a solid, but essential first issue.