‘Cyberpunk RED’ Brings a High-Tech Dystopia of the Near Future to Your Living Room
It’s time to go back to Night City this week on RPG Spotlight as we take a look at a world of neon and ultra-high tech with Cyberpunk RED.
Cyberpunk RED is the latest edition to the classic tabletop RPG of a terrible high-tech, high surveillance future. It released just in time for fans of the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 video game to finish playing, digest, and want another entry point into a weird and wired cyberpunk setting. And as that game, it bridged the gap in the timeline between the previous RPGs and Cyberpunk 2077 and attempted to continue fleshing out this huge and highly complex world for fans. On their own, each game is a complete product and a stand-alone experience. But for fans who are ready to get really immersed, the entire Cyberpunk series works together like novels in a series.
Cyberpunk RED
The basic rules are relatively simple compared to the crunchiness level of other games with similar settings. Players roll d10s and add modifiers made up of their attributes and skills. High enough totals will pass whatever check the player is trying to make. This works from anything from corporate espionage to domestic terrorism to just looking really really cool.
Combat is a little more complex with to-hit value tables, sub-rules, and complex intricacies of different kinds of attacking, even if they look like they should be too similar to differentiate between. If you’ve ever played any crunchy to crunchyish RPGs before, knowing which chart to pull up when will probably quickly become second nature. But for newer players or players brought to the world of tabletop RPGs for the first time by the siren call of more Cyperpunk 2077 adjacent content, it could easily become an overwhelming experience.
Character creation also gets a little more crunchy with so, so many skill options alone. If you’ve ever perused a list of GURPs skills and thought, “This may be too many options.” Cyberpunk RED isn’t that bad. But there is truly no lack of options. If you have a specific character in mind, you’ll likely be able to make exactly that person. While this may be discouraging moment for newcomers to tabletop gaming, seasoned players should have no trouble, and even probably enjoy the freedom and full customization. And really, the newer players are probably playing with more experienced ones; just help your friends make their dream hacker.
The Future is Fun. Probably.
Once you get into real gameplay and through enough combat scenarios to really get a hang of how the game is played, Cyberpunk RED is great. It’s big, smog-filled, neon-lit fun in a world that will let you explore some heavy and eternally timely concepts. Who doesn’t want to encounter corporate corruption, government overreach, surveillance states, and the dangerous side of a high-tech world in their fantasy game settings? Or, you can play a reality devoid of fun adventure in a retro-futuristic world, it’s your future.
And there’s more of it out right now. Tales of the Red: Hope Reborn is the game’s first big campaign, available on both Roll20 and Demiplane. So if you are playing Cyberpunk RED, have been thinking about playing, or did play a while back and fell off, this is the perfect time to jump (back?) onto the streets of Night City.
If you’re interested in checking out Cyberpunk RED for yourself, you can find more information on the Talsorian Games official website.
Have you played Cyberpunk RED or any other games in the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG family? Did you play Cyberpunk 2077 and were looking for another way to visit Night City? What would your job in the dystopian future be? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
