Magazine Madness 37: 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.

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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.