Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit: A Review

Editing Note: As I prepare to smash the publish button in blogger, I realized that I didn’t quite say everything that I wanted to say. There is so much more to this Cyberpunk Red world and this article is already twice as long as I would prefer. I’ll definitely have to continue my thoughts on this in another post. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Where do I start Choomba? I suppose the first thing I should mention is my disclaimer. Cyberpunk is not a genera I’m completely familiar with. I’ve read most of Cyberpunk 2020. and Neuromancer by Gibson and have a few other books in my que to read. I’ve played a few games of Shadowrun and watched Johnny Mnemonic, both Blade Runner movies, and a few other not so cyberpunk movies. I've never played any Cyberpunk games by R.Talsorian Games Inc. With this in mind I’d say its fair for me to be impartial between the different versions of Cyberpunk out there.

First off, I have to say that the production value of the Jumpstart Kit is phenomenal. High quality printed materiel and dice are included in the physical box. The current cost of the physical box is $30 plus tax and shipping but if you’re a digital fan or just want to print it yourself, it can be had for $15 over on DriveThruRPG. So head on over to your closest Vendit machine and get you some cyber mods for your VR system.

Before I received the jumpstart kit, I took some time to get familiar with Cyberpunk 2020. I briefly read through the RPG and watched some actual plays to get familiar with the system. My first impression was that it’s a bit clunky and slow, especially for combat. There weren’t any game sessions that used Netrunners so that tells me the rules for that aspect of the game is probably not that great unless the whole party consists of Netrunners.

Once the box arrived, I practically devoured its contents over the weekend. The box contains a 44-page rulebook, a 52-page worldbook, a folded 11x17 quick reference sheet, two 11x17 double sided maps, 6 pregenerated character sheets, a card stock sheet with 19 standees and 4 vehicles, some plastic stands for the standees, and a set of dice (2d10 and 4d6). Everything in the box looks amazing with the only caveat being the 2d10 dice. Those d10’s are almost unusable. You have to pay extra special attention to the orientation of the dice to know if you rolled a 6 or a 9. They certainly can’t be used to roll d100 because both d10’s look exactly the same. Normally you would either use two different colors to denote the ones position and the tens position, or one of the dice would have 00-09 to denote the tens position.

By now you might be wondering what is Cyberpunk Red? This version of Cyberpunk takes place in the year 2045. It’s essentially the in-between for Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077. Cyberpunk 2020 is the previous tabletop RPG and Cyberpunk 2077 is the upcoming videogame RPG. The premise behind Red is that during the roaring 20’s, two smaller Megacorps went to war with each other trying to scoop up the resources of another bankrupted Megacorp. Well, these smaller corpo’s aligned themselves with some bigger fish that you might have heard of. One sided with the American based Militech Megacorp, while the other was backed by Arasaka. This in turn was the start of the 4^th corporate war. Then came the bombing of the Arasaka towers in Night City. In 2023 a small nuclear bomb was detonated on the upper floors of the towers. Some blame Militech for the disaster while others say Arasaka detonated their own towers to maintain cyber security of their headquarters in Japan. It really doesn’t matter who set off the nuke. What matters is what happens next.

Nuclear fallout occurs for the next couple of years. The detonation at higher elevation flattened the central part of the city but most of Night City was spared total destruction. Then the US president stepped in and immediately nationalized the Militech corporation, effectively seizing the company and its assets under the auspiciousness of ending the global conflict. She then banned Arasaka from operating on US soil. The particulates from the nuclear explosion are floating in the air for the next couple of years giving the sky a permanent red hue. Even still today in 2045 the sky shines red during sunrise and sunset.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the world lore of Cyberpunk Red. It evoked many images to pop up in my head but at the same time I felt a bit confused. You see, I always thought of cyberpunk as a bunch of 80’s punk rockers with cyberware all over their body who had a nihilistic approach to life. To me, its about living in the apocalypse and the goal isn’t to save humanity, it’s about saving yourself. There are two groups of people, the rich and the poor. There’s no in-between. The poor scumbags of the city will do just about anything to get ahead and become one of the wealthy. It’s a story about the anti-heroes. The whole time I was reading Red, I kept thinking to myself this is way different than what I imagined. Red seems to be about rebuilding the city and surviving the post apocalypse. Then I look at the images in the books and am quickly reminded that no its not about post apocalypse. It just feels that way to me for some unknown reason.

 Although the corporations are still around, they aren’t as omnipotent as they were in 2020. The corporations used to control the city council but not so much anymore. The current Night City council is composed of Nomad families, Edgerunner factions, old city government, and a few corporations. Many of the city inhabitants live in apartment megablocs. Much like what you’d see in Judge Dredd. Store fronts are practically nonexistent with your shopping needs met by Vendit machines and your personal Agent (interactive PDA/cellphone). You need some new cyberware or perhaps just an upgrade installed? Time to head over to your favorite Ripperdoc. They can provide you with any of the legal items and cosmetic enhancements. If it’s illegal weaponry you’re after then you better have a good Fixer. They’re the ones who can point you to the Night Market.

Night City is broken up into 5 distinct areas with each one having its own ecology. The Hot Zone Wasteland is what used to be the central corporate zone of Night City (ground zero of the Arasaka towers bomb). The Rebuilding Urban Center Zone is the area immediately surrounding the hot zone that survived the blast. The Overpacked Suburbs Zone is what used to be the outer ring of old Night City (the safe suburbs where the corpo’s used to live). The Reclaimed Perimeter Zone is what used to be abandoned ghost towns of old Night City. Last but not least is The Open Road Zone. Here is the Mad Max area of the game. It is routinely patrolled by pack of Nomads to help keep it a little safer. If you venture out here you better be in a Nomad caravan.

This review is getting rather lengthy so I’m gonna wrap it up. There’s tons more to delve into but I need to talk about the system mechanics and give my overall thoughts. Cyberpunk 2020 used the Interlock system and Red is so similar that I assume its still the same system. They’ve tweaked certain mechanics in Red so I’m not sure. The overall mechanic is easy if you’ve ever played D&D. Its STAT+SKILL+d10 versus a difficulty value (DV) set by the GM. At first glance this seems fairly easy but from what I’ve seen of actual plays, it drastically slows down a game that should be more cinematic in my mind. Characters and NPC’s can have a health value of up to 50 hit points. This means combats are long and drawn out. It’s very similar to mid-level games of D&D in this respect. The attrition based systems are antiquated at best and not all that great.

This is why I’m going to abandon the Cyberpunk Red mechanics in favor of Savage Worlds. I think this game has tons of potential but not with the Interlock System. It’s also worth noting that Red attempts to fix the Netrunning rules by partially dismantling the NET. Yes, the NET is still around but it’s not global anymore. They are more like LAN’s now and the Netrunner has to get their butts off the couch to join the team in meatspace. One more thing to keep in mind is that these are Jumpstart rules. It’s not the full ruleset and this product seems to focus mostly on the world lore and Netrunning mechanics.

I will definitely buy the full rulebook of Cyberpunk Red when it’s released. If for nothing more than inspiration to run my own Savage Worlds Cyberpunk game. I must admit that I’m not opposed to the Interlock System at all. If someone invited me to play in a game of Cyberpunk 2020 or Red, I’d be all over it. For now though I’d still give this product 4 out of 5 eddies. If someone asked me if I’d buy it again, I’d say absolutely! It’s an excellent product. It’s not quite as good as FFG’s starter sets but that’s the gold standard in my opinion. See you on the flipside Choombata’s.

P.S. – I nearly forgot to mention that on Veteran’s Day weekend in the US, the Nerds-International group is holding an online convention open to the public November 8th-11th. We need more players and GM’s. If you’re interested in playing some Savage Cyberpunk with me then head on over to the sign up page at https://piersonjaime.wixsite.com/nivcon If there is enough interest in my game then I could be convinced to run another game on Sunday morning.

P.P.S. – I’d like to give a shout out to the 3 T RPG Podcast. My buddies Harrison and Nikk are very talented podcasters with a hilariously informative production. They have DCC actual plays and talk about all kinds of RPG’s.

Nerds-International MeWe community