[Free RPG Day 2022] Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is the new quick-start and introduction to Cyberpunk Red, the fourth edition of the Cyberpunk roleplaying game originally published by R. Talsorian Games Inc. in 1988. Inspired by the Cyberpunk literary subgenre—of which William Gibson’s Neuromancer was a leading example—Cyberpunk Red is set in a dark future ravaged by disease, ecological collapse, corporate rapaciousness, and political unrest. The massive growth of corporations as extraterritorial entities, which radically dividing the future into one of extreme haves and havenots, was shattered in 2023 when a ‘pocket nuke’ was detonated in the Arasaka headquarters in the west coast metroplex of Night City. This ended the Fourth Corporate War between Arasaka and Militech, devastated Night City, and brought economic and environmental devastation to the world, causing a depression which continues two decades on... It ended corporate domination, reducing corporations to being local and international; turned much of the USA into a new Wild West where safe travel could often be promised by the Nomad tribes. For years after the nuclear detonation, the sky was red and still is at dawn dusk, leading the new age to be known as the Time of the Red.

The world of Cyberpunk Red is violent, neon cast, and dominated by technology to the point where it has been subsumed into the body. Cyberware enables humanity to be faster, stronger, have better senses, and more. Some have reacted to this mechanical invasion of the body with technoshock, but other have embraced it, living on the edge, taking advantage of their enhancements to be able to rip doors off with their cyberarms, drive their car or aerodyne with inhuman reflexes via interface plugs, tune into the infrared with cybereyes, or even cast their consciousness into local NET architectures at the speed of data. All to survive, make money, and build their rep. They are known as Edgerunners.

The setting for Cyberpunk Red and Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is Night City, the independent west coast city state where the ‘pocket nuke’ was detonated in 2023 and is still rebuilding after the effects of the bomb. Services, supplies, and law enforcement are what you pay for. The reduced corporations still supply and provide almost everything, from power to food to medical services to media, often brought in by Nomad tribes that run transport in the new North America, independents do grow real food though, and whilst the corporations have their own security, freelancers and bodyguards are available for hire, though the city maintains a Maximum Force Tactical Division or ‘Psycho Squad’ or ‘MAX–TAC’ which handles cybernetic criminals or anyone suffering from Cyberpsychosis. As inhabitants of Night City, you get your information from city wide freestanding dataterms and news from screamsheets downloaded to a personal agent helps you with your daily life from phone calls to shopping; you wear clothing able to emit sounds and video, even monitor your condition; you do your shopping at self-contained, armed and armoured Vendits; you eat kibble or good prepack food if you can; and you go armed. Either a Polymer One-shot easily bought or printed, or something bigger purchased from a Fixer after it has been scavenged from the Fourth Corporate War or smuggled into the city. The same goes for Cyberware...

Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future devotes the first quarter of its forty-eight pages to introducing the genre of Cyberpunk and Cyberpunk Red as a setting. The former covers the attitudes of the genre—‘Style Over Substance’, ‘Attitude is Everything’, and ‘Live on the Edge’—before the latter provides a surprisingly detailed overview of Cyberpunk Red’s dark future. This overview is of course, much shortened from the Cyberpunk Red core rulebook, but there is a lot of information here, including a timeline running from 1990 to 2045 and a description of Night City, as well as its notable megacorporations, gangs, and street slang.

The middle part of Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is devoted to explaining the rules. Mechanically, both it and Cyberpunk Red 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 Difficult Value is thirteen for an Everyday task, fifteen for Difficult, seventeen for Professional, twenty-one for Heroic, and so on. Critical successes—rolls of ten—enable a player to keep rolling and adding to his total as long as he keeps rolling ten, whereas Critical failures—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.

Combat covers gun combat, melee combat, and brawling, including various manoeuvres such as grab, choke, hold action, and more. Weapon damage is rolled on six-sided dice, such as five six-sided dice for a shotgun and three for a heavy pistol. Whenever a damage roll includes two or more rolls of six, a critical injury is inflicted and a roll on the Critical Injuries table is required. This can result in the character having a limb dismembered, a collapsed lung, crushed fingers, or worse… Also included in the rules is another kind of combat—the facedown. This enables a character to gain a psychological advantage over an opponent.

The scenario in Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is ‘Getting Paid: A First Job for Cyberpunk Red’. It is short, consisting of really only two scenes, focusing on conflict and confrontation, and it should only take a single session to play through. Designed as an introduction to Night City and Cyberpunk Red, as the scenario opens, the Player Characters or Edge Runners have made a score, having stolen some money from the South Night City Docks. However, a gang of corrupt cops have learned about the theft and sets the Edge Runners up to take the money from them after beating up their fixer. After surviving an ambush, the Edge Runners are free to take whatever approach they want in getting the money back, including diplomacy, violence, and stealth.

‘Getting Paid: A First Job for Cyberpunk Red’ is designed to be played by five players and five pre-generated Edge Runners are provided in Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future. They are a Rockerboy, a Solo, a Tech, a Medtech, and a Media. Rockerboys are rock and roll rebels who use performance and rhetoric to fight authority; Solos are assassins, bodyguards, killers, and soldiers for hire in a lawless new world; Techs are renegade mechanics; Medtech are doctors who patch up meat and metal alike; and Medias are reporters and journalists looking to break the big story. Each pre-generated Edgerunner is given a two-page character sheet. On the front is an illustration of the Edgerunner as well as his full stats, skills, armour, weapons, cyberware, and gear. On the back is some background, plus spaces for the Edgerunner’s Lifepath to be filled in. Once a player has selected the Edgerunner he wants to play, he rolls on the Lifepath table—a feature of Cyberpunk going all the way back to Cyberpunk 2013 and replicated in a stripped back version in the Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future—to determine his Background, Motivation, Goals, Friends (other than the player characters), Enemies, Romance, and Personality. This nicely adds a degree of variation between the player characters and gets them rolling dice even before play, and in addition, the Game Master is encouraged to tie the results of some of these dice rolls into the scenario.

Physically, everything in the Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is presented in full colour. The layout is clean and tidy, the illustrations are fully painted pieces and excellent. The two maps provided for the encounters in ‘Getting Paid: A First Job for Cyberpunk Red’ are also nicely done. Overall, Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is an enjoyably readable product.

There are two issues with Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future, both of which it shares with the earlier Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit. One is that does not name its weapons or cyberware, so that all of the gear feels flat and generic, rather than giving flavour as it should. The second is that it does not include the Netrunner Role, the cybernetic master hackers of the post-NET world and brain burning secret stealers. This is understandable, as the Role is mechanically and conceptually far more complex than any of the Roles used in ‘Getting Paid: A First Job for Cyberpunk Red’, and its inclusion would potentially slow down game play in what is designed to be a fast-paced, action orientated scenario. That said, the Netrunner is one of Cyberpunk Red’s signature Roles and its absence is felt in Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future.

With its combination of background, rules, Edge Runners, and straightforward scenario, Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future does feel like a mini or stripped back version of the Cyberpunk Red core rule book. Essentially, as the title suggests, Cyberpunk Red on ‘Easy Mode’. Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future is a solid, serviceable, and succinct introduction to Cyberpunk Red that delivers a one-session taster of the Time of the Red.