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 5 starts by adding some crunch to your Cyberpunk RED campaign. Quite literally. With ‘Breaking Your Stuff: Rules for Maintaining (and Damaging) Gear’, the Edgerunners have to deal with the wear and tear on their weapons and gear, and the need to maintain it. It can now be categorised as ‘Damaged’ as well as ‘Destroyed’ and ‘Destroyed Beyond Repair’, which allows it to be repaired or used with a penalty. Maintenance can be part of an Edgerunner’s Lifestyle level if the item does not exceed that Lifestyle level, but if it does, he will have to pay to keep it functioning. There are Role-based exceptions, such as Rockerboys having a Lifestyle one level higher for the benefit of maintaining musical instruments and other equipment. Lack of maintenance can lead to breakdowns, as can other damage, but when a player rolls a natural one to use a damaged or poorly maintained, malfunctions can happen. Tables list possible malfunctions for a range of devices and weapons and the Game Master can always make up more. This adds a level of realism to the play of Cyberpunk RED, but it may be a touch too much for some groups. Others will like the grit adds to the streets of Night City.
The Edgerunners may have had the chance to play Roller Derby as part of the campaign, Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn, but ‘Chasing The Rabbit: Roller Derby in the Time of the Red’ gives the full details of the game and the Night City Wonderland League and its twelve teams. It can be the focus of a scenario or two, but there is the possibility here that Roller Derby could be the central focus of a campaigned, perhaps combining a Streel Level campaign with a sports-based campaign. The combination would have lots of inspiration to draw upon and would work well for a short to medium length campaign.
In the Time of the RED, everyone has an Agent, an A.I. in their pocket that is one half-communication device, one-half computer, providing entertainment, handling calls and messages, filters news, tracks tasks, orders groceries, and more. Much like everyone today attached to their mobile phone, the Agent is very personal to its user. ‘All About Agents: Your Best Friend in your Pocket’ looks at the history of the Agent, their origins being in a game console that did not sell well in 2020 and got hacked to do much of what an Agent does today. The manufacturer of that game console tried to adapt, but other manufacturers came to dominate the market with models like the EBM PiR2 or Raven Microcybernetics Drake, the latter an internal model. An Agent can be hacked and there are rules for this, but this will get the hacker into serious trouble if discovered. The article includes models and apps ready to buy and install, but where Agents get interesting is the little details that they can add to play. They reflect their user and depending upon the personality installed, the Game Master can have fun roleplaying them and interacting with their owners, having them become unpredictable due to spotty connections and dead spots, and even offer the very occasional piece of advice to their owners. This is an article that helps the Game Master bring another aspect of daily life in Cyberpunk RED into the busy lives of her Edgerunners and makes it just a touch more immersive.
‘Toggle’s Temple: Be Ready When the Dolphins Invade’ brings back a lot of guns from Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and gives them stats for Cyberpunk RED. Which makes a lot of sense, since in as heavily armed as the society was in 2020, there are going to be a lot of firearms to be found two decades later. So welcome back Militech Avenger, Dai Lung Streetmaster, Arasaka Minami 10, and others. The article couples this with a secret underground armoury, gun range, and configurable weapons-based obstacle course in Night City run by a man known as Toggle. And Toggle has a gloriously wild conspiracy theory about Cetaceans! A perfect combination of stats and off-kilter colour.
‘Did Someone Say Murder? An Investigation System for Cyberpunk RED’ does what it says and gives mechanics, advice, and examples for running mysteries in Cyberpunk RED. Edgerunners gain a new stat called ‘Focus’, derived from Intelligence and Will and expended to make Evidence Checks over the course of an investigation, and then recovered by whole days of rest. A mystery has a Goal and a Complexity rating; the latter being reduced by successful Evidence Checks as if Complexity was actually the mystery’s Hit Points. A successful Evidence Check also gain a clue. Clues even have the equivalent of armour, called Obfuscation, reducing the damage done by the Evidence Check. If the Obfuscation is zero, then the clue could be a first-hand witness statement or complete recording which points clearly towards the solution, but if as high as six, it might only be a rumour or grainy footage. Obstacles such as a remote location or a red herring or corporate interference will impede the Edgerunners’ investigative efforts, inflicting Focus damage if they are successful, but more damage if they are not.
The article turns the mystery into a construct of a kind, complete with Hit Points, that the Edgerunners are fighting, and likely fighting long term. So, there is an artificiality to both mystery and the investigative process that the Game Master may want to make less obvious so that the investigation is less of a game and more of an organic process. Of course, good roleplaying will help on both sides of the screen. Nevertheless, the system is workable, the advice solid, and the examples given are decent.
‘Your New Best Friend: Welcome to the Bottom of the Food Chain’ looks at the new range of cyberpets (and the dangers of keeping them) from Biotechnica. Want a lovable Forever Turtle™ (comes with combat jaw and its own Trauma Response account for longevity), cute and fluffy Datarabbit™ (complete with EMP-protected storage locker for holding sensitive memory chip in its eye), or Neon Newt™ (with acid-secreting skin and flamethrower breath)? Here are the rules and stats for them and more. An owner needs a good Animal Handling skill to train a Cyberpet and maintain the Cyberpet’s own Lifestyle level in addition to his own! The article describes nine Cyberpets old and new, new Cyberpet cyberware, and includes four hooks that the Game Master can use. These are fun new toys that the Edgerunners and their players can play with—if they can afford them, and the Game Master can use to out the occasional memorable NPC.
‘Screamsheet Generator: Creating Headlines for your Campaign’ is an excellent toolkit for the Game Master to create Screamsheets, the equivalent of newspapers in Cyberpunk RED. It is really several tables of prompts, but these are all good and the process is shown off with a good example of the process that works through a pitfall or two along the way. It provides another way to add verisimilitude to a campaign. The penultimate entry in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 5 is the eponymous ‘The 12 Days of REDMAS: A Cyberpunk Red Holiday Tradition’. This is a collection of goodies and gear to satisfy most gearheads and cyberware junkies, from the Centurion Essentials Thermal Dagger which slices and stabs and as much as it sets defenders on fire, to a Zetatech CyberConductor that enables a Netrunner to have three Cyberdecks in parallel and switch between them that comes with some program shutdown, so he can have access to more programs ready to run. As with Christmas presents, there should be something here for everyone.
Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 5 comes to close with a big article which both adjusts the scale of Cyberpunk RED and the stage upon which it is played as well as providing an update for three whole supplements for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., ‘Solo of Fortune 2045’ takes up almost a third of the issue and provides a state of affairs guide to mercenary work in the 2040s. In the process it updates the popular supplements Solo of Fortune, Solo of Fortune 2, and Maximum Metal. However, it is not the full update of Maximum Metal in that it does not detail tanks, artillery, ground-support aircraft, and other armoured vehicles. Rather, it keeps it personal with an examination of Advanced Combat Personal Armour or ‘ACPA’ suits, along new equipment, weapons, modifications, and more. The ‘editor’ of Solo of Fortune stresses that the magazine is for professionals and not ‘posers’ and in game terms it adds ‘Mercenary Level’ above the ‘Street Level’ of games where the Solo is not just the combat specialist, but also Hardened in terms of power level and will expect to face similar threats.
The ’magazine’ breaks down mission types and examines what Mercenary Level is as well as detailing new equipment like barrel extensions (and their increased ranges); adding ‘Machine Gun’ and ‘Autofire’ as categories; and listing numerous new weapons from manufacturers old and new. Burrowing ammunition, explosive ammunition, and high precision ammunition are also available for arrows, bullets, and slugs; new explosives and surplus armour such as Heavy, Hybrid, and Light Metalgear; and plenty of new chemicals and dispensers. Pride of place, of course, goes to the ‘ACPA’ suits and the rules for them. This includes operation, fabrication and repair, and design. The latter enables a Solo to order the parts and have a Tech construct them into a working machine, or of course, a Solo can just buy (and modify) an off-the-shelf design. The latter includes some familiar models such as the Militech Commando and the Zhirafa Boris in addition to new designs.
Add in to this some colour fiction which sets the groundwork for Mercenary Level games, gives advice for players new to the power level, and throws in some history that fans of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. will specifically as well as some mission ideas and a full mercenary Level Screamsheet and ‘Solo of Fortune 2045’ just about gives everything that the Game Master and her players might want to take a Solo-focused campaign up a notch or two. There is probably still room for a full Solo of Fortune supplement for Cyberpunk RED, but in the meantime, ‘Solo of Fortune 2045’ is perfect for the Solo who really wants to go professional and the Game Master who wants to shift her campaign away from the streets.
Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 5 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 and of course, all of it is optional, as with previous issues, having it all in print in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 5 is a great compilation and great support for Cyberpunk RED. There is so much in its pages that will find its way into any Game Master’s campaign and much that will extend it too in unexpected ways, such as sending it onto a Roller Derby rink, giving advice and structure to mysteries (murders and otherwise), and turning up the power for Mercenary Level. Plus, there is much that will add little details to the Game Master’s campaign like creating Screamsheet handouts and giving a touch of agency to Agents. All of it together, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 5 is another great issue.
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