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 4th 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.
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.
