City in the RED

Almost all of the famous cities in roleplaying are fantasy cities. Waterdeep, the ‘City of Splendours’ from the Forgotten Realms, and Sigil, the City of Doors from Planescape, both for Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast; Freeport: The City of Adventure from Green Ronin Publishing; and Pavis in Glorantha for RuneQuest from Chaosium, Inc. Conversely, famous cities in roleplaying in the Science Fiction genre are few and far between. Both come from the Cyberpunk genre. One, of course, is the real world city of Seattle in the Sixth World of Shadowrun, whilst the other is the fictional Night City of Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., and Cyberpunk RED. Night City began life as Coronado City, incorporated in the early nineties and envisioned as a planned urban community by Richard Night on the coast of northern California. After his murder, it was renamed in his honour, but crime moved in and the city was dominated by mob wars for a decade, before corporate interests disrupted the activities of the various criminal organisations. Night City became notorious as a battleground between Militech and Arasaka during the Fourth Corporate War, which came to a head with the detonation of nuclear device atop Arasaka’s Night City headquarters which devastated the city’s Corporate Centre, allegedly placed by the famous Rockerboy, Johnny Silverhand. The reconstruction efforts, led by Richard Night’s widow and corporate interests, under a new charter, have been ongoing now for twenty-five years, disrupted by an earthquake, a terrorist attack by cultists who believe the nuclear detonation is sacred, and a near-war between Nomad groups that run the transport of passengers and goods in and out of the city. None more so than in the ‘Hot Zone’, the site of the city’s original corporate centre where the bomb went off. It is 2045, the Time of the Red, and Night City remains a heavily armed, corporate-run city-state in the south of the Free State of Northern California, a Free Port serving as the gateway to the Pacifica Confederation that consists of Northern California, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia.

Night City 2045 is an update of the Night City supplement, covering its history and current status for use with Cyberpunk RED. It is comprehensive guide to the city, an in-world handbook for the tourist or other visitor which they could purchase and download to their Agent called An Outsider’s Guide to Night City, compiled by independent Medias, each describing one of the city’s different districts. As the introduction makes clear, what this means is that the not all of the information in the supplement is true, so the players and their Edgerunners cannot wholly rely upon it and the Game Master is free to determine the veracity of any one detail or another. In terms of timeframe, apart from it being set in the year 2045, Night City 2045 is set during the events of Tales of the RED: Street Stories and Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn. This does mean that there will be spoilers present. The reader will also spot locations from other supplements such as Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red and also elements from the computer game, Cyberpunk 2077. For example, players will recognise the Tyger Claws gang which they will encounter early in the computer game and will recognise the Royal Blue Radio, The Dirge, and Night FM radio stations. Long-time fans of Cyberpunk will recognise some of the in-jokes too, such as the descriptions of the Petrochem Plastics Plant and the SovOil Plastics Plant being all but identical—two sides of the same coin.

Besides a history and timeline of Night City, there is a guide to its weather, how to gain its citizenship (including a State Identification Number or SIN), getting there and getting around the city and how much that costs (including getting a driving licence and registering vehicles at the DMV), government, legal framework (justice tends to be summary, the arrested are presumed to be guilty, The Judge is an A.I., and fines can be reduced by public flogging(!) with an electro whip), public services from 911 (also A.I. run) and Backing to medical care and education, utilities and their provision, and media. There is a complete guide to the city’s factions—gangs, criminal organisations, and security providers. Be sure to avoid the Bozos, the faction-driven clown gang whose pranks are deadly; never busk without the Julliard Guild’s permission; and go to the Piranhas if you want the best party in the city. All of the factions have their badges or patches on show and these are used to mark their territory on the supplement’s maps.

There is also a full set of maps for the whole of Night City which show the various elements of the city are. These include its NCART and Rail Lines, bars, brothels, casinos and clubs, housing sites, and medical vendors and markets, with each map also serving as an index of sorts.

Two fifths of Night City 2045 is devoted to mapping and detailing its twenty-four districts from Little Europe, Upper Marina, and the Old Combat Zone on the Island and the Pacifica Playground and Rancho Coronado in the South Side. Each follows the same format. An introduction by a noted Media who provides an overview of the district, followed by details of its city manager and his politics, security provider, recent history, then its locations, and lastly personalities. It is rarely for any location to be given a simple, one paragraph description, most of them are fairly lengthy, and in cases of locations such as markets and high-rises, expanded to give the businesses and persons working and selling out of them. Similarly, the ‘McCartney Field Stadium’ details all of the teams and franchises based in its facilities. The descriptions are written in character, so Leon Vetti, writing about Downtown tells you that whilst ‘Europa Meatworks’ might be the best artisanal butcher’s shop in the city, beloved of foodies and sometimes offering some exotic cuts of meat, he wonders where the meat comes from, offering several suggestions in a conversational tone, whilst next door, ‘Folio’, might feel like a genuine fortune tellers, but that is all drug-laced herbal tea, laser-focused cold reading, and Garden Patch research! Nearby, ‘Goosetopia’ sells collectible vinyl models of geese in different costumes in limited editions. Utterly absurd of course, but in each these there is enough detail that a Game Master can develp a hook or plot. Maybe someone wants to know where ‘Europa Meatworks’ is sourcing its raw cuts, someone’s grandmother is spending too much money at ‘Folio’, and how far will a collector go to complete his collection of vinyl geese? And that is just from a single page. Just about every location description suggests something that a Game Master can develop.

Of course, there really is too much to go through in Night City 2045, but one district that most readers and Game Masters will be interested in is the ‘Hot zone’, what is left of the corporate zone shattered and irradiated by the Fourth Corporate War. So bad its Utility Code is 10. At the heart is the crater where the Araska headquarters once stood, surrounded by buildings in various states of disrepair, some barely standing, others shedding parts and materials like deadly rain. On the edge stands ‘Dark Zone One’, a black zone where any drone flown over it cannot record any footage, snipers shoot anyone who enters, and the urban explorers steer clear; ‘The Dump’ where cleared wreckage from the district is stored (and unofficially picked over by scavengers); and Father Grace, a pastor for the ‘Global Church of Elvis’, lives in ‘Graceland Medical’, out of which he operates an armoured mobile clinic, dispensing healthcare to the nearby scavenger camps for free. The district description is shorter than most, but it is the most different and environmentally at least, the most dangerous.

Night City 2045 does not confine itself solely to within the city boundaries. It goes beyond them to detail the Outskirts where the ‘Municipal Landfill’, ‘Night City Spaceport’, and ‘Militech Ballistics and Explosives Range’ are all located. Night City 2045 finishes on a wacky note, one that presents ‘The Happiest Place in Night City’. This is ‘Playland by the Sea’, a theme pack not part of the city, but just off the coast and with ‘Six Lands of Happiness’. It gives the kitsch banality of a theme park a sharped-edged twist of being run in the dark future of 2045, with the Piranhas gang running security and dealing drugs because anything else would be worse! Its six zones, such as Lovers Lane, Haunted Woods, and Grand Junction with its recreation of San Francisco in 1851, all lend themselves to some weird places to business or simply just run some downtime on a day out! The map of ‘Playland by the Sea’ is a really great, just getting its slightly cheesy feel right.

What does surprise about Night City 2045 is the lack of new rules or mechanics. The two primary additions handle security response to alerts or difficult situations and the service status of the local utilities. Every district in Night City 2045 and every building is given a Security Code. This gives a number representing the likelihood of designated security—appointed or self-appointed—responding to an alert, the faction (gang, Night City Olice Department, or security contractor) which will respond, and an Intensity descriptor—‘Light’, ‘Medium’, or ‘Medium’—which indicates the degree of that response. A Utility Code indicates whether or not the location or district has working access to power, water, and CitiNet, the latter the city’s information network. A Utility Code is given per district rather than per location. When narratively appropriate, the Game Master can roll against the Utility Code to see if the utilities are working, and of course, this can the situation the Edgerunners are in either easier or more difficult. The Security Code is the same whether the Edgerunners want to avoid security entanglements or alert local security. Both mechanics are incredibly simple and easy to use.

Apart from these two rules, Night City 2045 only includes stats for various NPCs found in particular districts. For example, Biotechnica Guards and Night City University Guards in University District, Night City Plaza Busker in The Glen, Combat Cabb Driver in South Night City, and Forklift Driver in Port of Night City. Many of these could appear elsewhere, the Night City Plaza Busker on a street corner or the Forklift Driver in any warehouse, for example.

As much information as there is in Night City 2045—and there is a lot—the supplement is not perfect. The problem is with the maps. The issue is that the orthographic maps in the original Night City supplement were great, whereas in Night City 2045 they are not. They are not terrible maps and they are serviceable, but anyone expecting more will be disappointed.

Physically, Night City 2045 is tidily presented. The artwork is used to depict each district at the head of each chapter and so capture some of the flavour described later. The maps are clear and simple, if unexciting.

Whether it is places where they live, places they want to go, places they have to go, Night City 2045 provides the Game Master with details and descriptions that she can use to bring the experiences of the Edgerunners to life. There are plenty of hooks too, which the Game Master can winkle out and develop, or perhaps let lie for the players and their Edgerunners to discover when perusing An Outsider’s Guide to Night City on their Agents. Versatile and packed full of lore, Night City 2045 is a supplement that the Cyberpunk RED Game Master will find very useful.

Magazine Madness 46: Interface RED Volume 5

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 5 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 is this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 4, 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 even make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

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.

Magazine Madness 43: Interface RED Volume 4

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 4 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, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3, 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 4 opens with ‘Hornet’s Pharmacy: A Chemical Wonderland’, which introduces a dealer—Hornet—in street drugs, his wares, and more. There are combat drugs for the Solo, of course, but surprisingly for the Exec and the Netrunner too. ‘Berserker’, which lets the user shrug off the immediate effects of Critical Injuries, so good for the Solo, whilst the Exec becomes a killer in the office with temporary bonuses to Will and Cool with ‘Prime Time’, but a huge loss of Humanity, and ‘Sixgun’, which gives a Netrunner a bonus to Speed when Jacked in and always effect a Safe Jack Out, but reduces his Move and Ref. Additive Compounds include a ‘Delaying Compound’, which can delay the effects of a substance, and ‘Distilling Compound’, which supercharges any substance, increasing the difficulty to resist its effects. New gear includes the Suzumebachi Assassin Drone, which can be operated remotely and is equipped with a dartgun, and new Cyberware, such as the ‘Pursuit Security Inc. Gas Jet’, which is installed in a cyberarm and is an aerosol gas launcher that effectively works as an exotic shotgun that sprays the chemical or toxin of the user’s choice.

‘Black Chrome+: Extra Content for Black Chrome’ puts the Edgerunners in contact with another dealer, Molly Anderson, who has stuff left out of Black Chrome. There is ‘Junk Ammunition’ and ‘Scavenged Armour’ for the Edgerunner on a budget, incendiary grenades, of course called ‘Molotov Cocktails’, and more. The content of ‘Black Chrome+: Extra Content for Black Chrome’ is less useful than ‘Hornet’s Pharmacy: A Chemical Wonderland’, since it is really filling in niches rather than presenting items of more general use. What is definite of use in ‘Black Chrome+: Extra Content for Black Chrome’ is the answers to questions, “What does X style look like?” and “What do External and Internal Linear Frames look like?” Part of Player Character generation in Cyberpunk RED is deciding what the Player Character looks like and to that end, Cyberpunk RED suggests ten basic fashion types, such as ‘Bag Lady Chic’, ‘Gang Colours’, and ‘Urban Flash’. In response to R. Talsorian Games, Inc. having to answer the first question one too many times, it decides to show you with a set of mini illustrations for each fashion type that nicely bring this aspect of 2045 to life. Then it does the same for Linear Frames along with some description too. Again, very useful because the Game Master can show her players rather than just tell.

The fact that ‘Achievements and Loot Boxes’ was the publisher’s April Fool’s download makes complete sense, since it is bonkers, but it is easy to imagine it being integrated into play. It is a reward system, known as the ‘M.R.A.M.A.Z.E.’ or ‘Mystery Reward Achievements Making (you) Attain (the) Zenith (of) Existence’ program, which gives an Edgerunner a trophy for attaining certain targets. For example, ‘15 Minutes of Fame’ is awarded when an Edgerunner reaches Reputation level 7, ‘Going Dark’ for completing a mission without resorting to combat, and ‘Pub Crawl’, for a buying a drink in a bar in each one of Night City’s districts. In return, a player can turn an Achievement in to gain a reroll or one of Mr. Amaze’s Mystery Boxes, randomly rolled for. This adds loot boxes to the play of Cyberpunk RED and versions of the Achievement Badges are given that the Game Master could print out and actually put on badges! It is a very silly option and probably the best way to use it is either to ignore it or to combine it with a city wide event with a limited time frame.

‘Stickball: The sport of the street’ gives the rules for the game that some gangs in Night City, as well as other groups, use as a means to settle disputes. It is a non-lethal combat sport in which microwavers, acid paintballs, heavy handguns loaded with Stickball-sanctioned rubber ammunition, smoke grenades, stun batons, stun guns, and Stickball Sticks are ‘legal’ weapons, the game being played with electrified balls and electromagnetic lacrosse sticks. Although the players and their Edgerunners need to learn the rules to Stickball, this adds a non-lethal option for an action session or so. Of course, if violence is the preferred option, then a gang might take the engines off one or more AV-4s, bolt them onto a combination of bus, truck, and/or junk, and hang whatever it can off the sides and mount the biggest weapons it can to create a cobbled-together scrap vehicle that might just give the gang the means to stand up to the hi-tech, dedicated combat vehicles fielded by law enforcement and corporate military forces. If only for a little while… The result is ‘The Dreaded Punknaught’, a Mad Max-style battering ram, weapons platform, and ganger transport that the article gives the means and guide for the Game Master to create one for her gangs. It even comes with a character sheet for the Punknaught and its own death table, and the vehicle can be used as threat to the Edgerunners, as a temporary vehicle for the Edgerunners, and the Edgerunners might even have to build one themselves!

One of the useful articles back in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2 was ‘Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels’ which explored options of where an Edgerunner might live if on a budget. ‘Corporate Conapts & Studio Apartments’ is the sequel, presenting more luxurious choices for when an Edgerunner is ready to move out of the modified Cargo Container home. The focus here is on the types of accommodation that the various corporations provide and where they are in Night City. For example, the employees of bitter rivals Petrochem and SovOil both reside in the ‘Petrochem & SovOil Joint Temporary Housing Solution’ near their offices. The facility is cheap because it is what they could get after they blew each other’s apartment blocks and to avoid each, the employees of Petrochem use one lift and one tennis court and the employees of SovOil use another. Unless one of the lifts breaks down and, in the meantime, human resources for both companies say it is just temporary. There are lots of little details like this, plus the article suggests what apartments are like in different districts and what fittings the up and coming Edgerunner might furnish his new home with. Real instant coffee, smart oven, and orbital crystal shower head for the ultimate in water pressure are some of the options here. The article definitely needed more though, and a sequel would be fitting since players do like to go shopping, if not always for guns.

‘Halloween Screamsheets: three spooky shorts for Cyberpunk RED’ outlines three scenarios to run during October. In ‘Haunted Vendit Haunts NCU Campus’, it appears that someone is aping a Continental Brands Triti-Fizz Vendit to sell flavours that the corporation does not and denies it is testing. The Edgerunners are hired to find the rogue Vendit, put it out of operation, and return the remains for analysis. In ‘Spook Up at Ghostglobe Halloween’, the EdgeRunners are hired by the Goth poser gang, the Sinful Adams, to run security for its upcoming Halloween event and prevent the Philharmonic Vampyres from crashing the event. This is a point defence scenario, which works especially well if the Edgerunners have encountered the Philharmonic Vampyres before, perhaps in ‘A Night at the Opera – Darkness and Desire in Night City’, from Tales of the RED: Street Stories. The third Screamsheet is ‘TSpooks’ Terror, Episode 21: Werewolf in Watson’. After a series of werewolf sightings and the supposed death of one in the district, the assistant coroner asks the Edgerunners to investivate what looks like enforced body sculpting. This a more detailed investigation than the previous two, but all three can be played through in a single session, and whilst all three involve Halloween, none of them have a whiff of the supernatural about them. This does not stop them from being horrific in places. Of the three, ‘Haunted Vendit Haunts NCU Campus’ is the screamsheet with least connection to Halloween, so can be run at any time of the year, whilst the other two are more specific in their time setting. All three are good solid screamsheets though, easily played through in a single session or two.

Penultimately, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 4 offers up its by now traditional Christmas carol suitable for the ‘Time of the Red’ and twelve classic pieces of cyberware or gear from days of Cyberpunk past. The head-mounted Cybercam EX -1 is every Media’s dream, whilst the Tech will want to get his hands on the Master Mechanic’s Tool Kit, especially given the bonus it gives to all tech-related rolls. Meanwhile the Cops of the NCPD swear by the Cyberscanner which picks up the cyberware installed in a suspect and the ION Cuffs that when placed on the suspect’s wrists shuts them down.

Lastly, ‘Cyberfists of Fury: Expanded Martial Arts’ adds twenty-three new martial arts forms for Cyberpunk RED which has martial artists learn multiple forms as their skill level increases, each form providing its own Special Moves as access to the Shared Special Moves common to most forms. The new forms in the article are divided between the traditional, such as Boxing, which provides Knockout Punch and Punch Combination, and Tai Chi, like Joint Manipulation and Lu, and the new, specific to the ‘Time of the Red’. Unsurprisingly, Arasaka and Militech have their own forms. Arasaka-te teaches Counter Strike and Escape Hold, whilst Militech Commando Training includes Combat Knife Training and Commando Disarm. For the Full Body Conversion, there is PanzerFaust with Borg Fist and Inner Chrome. There are also weapons-focused martial arts including Kendo or ‘Way of the Sword’, the archery focused Kyudo, and Gun Fu, the latter a modern Form with the Special Moves of Combat Reload and the amusingly named Woo Technique.

The need to choose a Form with each increase in skill level enables martial artists to learn a wide range of techniques and styles, and can be used in a variety of ways. One is to suggest a martial artist’s origins, such as training in Arasaka-te versus Capoeira, whilst another is set up a roleplaying opportunity, a martial artist Edgerunner needing to find and satisfy a teacher to learn a new Form and its Special Moves. Then of course, a Form can suggest details about an NPC as well as the way in which he fights. The article expands the options available to both player and Game Master and is undoubtedly useful to any campaign in which martial arts play a role, however significant.

Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 4 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read. Notably, many of the articles open with colour fiction that detail individuals and places that a Game Master could easily use help bring her campaign to life, for example, Hornet of ‘Hornet’s Pharmacy: A Chemical Wonderland’.

Although much of it was originally available for free, as with previous issues, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 4, it is nice to have it in print. And again, as before, all of it is useful in some ways, but barring the drug-related gear of ‘Hornet’s Pharmacy: A Chemical Wonderland’, the new equipment detailed in the issue is the least interesting content. ‘Halloween Screamsheets: three spooky shorts for Cyberpunk RED’ gives three good scenarios, whilst ‘Cyberfists of Fury: Expanded Martial Arts’ expands the character options in the roleplaying game in very useful fashion and ‘Corporate Conapts & Studio Apartments’ adds further detail and colour to the downtime of the Edgerunner with Eurobucks to spend. Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 4 brings a wealth of new detail to Cyberpunk RED and there is something useful in its pages for every Cyberpunk RED Game Master.

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.