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.
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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.
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.
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 fond useful.
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