written by: Eric Michael Gonzalez
Listen up you primitive screw heads the 2nd edition of Cyberpunk 2020 was released 30 years ago and soon Cyberpunk RED will be hitting friendly local game stores, digital hubs and night markets around the globe. Now I won’t be going into the roots of cyberpunk literature, film and its trans-humanism philosophy, because for the majority of you Smash has nuked your brain to the point where some of you can’t tell the difference between a Gibson guitar or a Gibson supercomputer. So I’ll keep it simple for you all and go over how the rules have changed from Cyberpunk 2020 to Cyberpunk Red. This won’t be a deep dive, but more of a drive by, so buckle up choombas and get ready for the break down.
Rolling and building the backstory of an edgerunner has always been my favorite aspect in Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk RED has not short changed us in any way with its new system. STATS are the foundation of your edgerunner and used for determining your Hit Points (HP), and are the base for all your skill checks. There are a few notable changes from 2020. Attraction (ATTR) is no longer a stat so if you want to play the femme fatale you’ll have to divide your STATS between Cool (COOL) and Empathy (EMP). Two new STATS have been added now, Dexterity (DEX) and Will (WILL). DEX has taken some of the work load of Reflex (REF) and now is the base stat for melee actions and a few other skills. WILL acts as a mental resistance to bad situations you’ve end up in and also contributes to determining HP. The Body Type Modifier has also been altered, it no longer applies a damage reduction modifier, but now applies an unarmed damage modifier. Now a combination of Body (BODY) and WILL can determine how many bullets your edgerunner can soak up before calling in that Trauma Team, more on that later.
So how do you get your STATS then? In 2020 you had the three options, Random, roll 9d10 and use that total for character points, Fast roll 1d10 for each stat, re-rolling 2’s or Cinematic, where your Game Master (Referee) assigns you character points based on your position in the game. In RED there are still three methods Streetrats, Edgerunners and Complete Packages. Streetrats is a template based system where you roll 1d10 and choose the corresponding stat line. Edgerunners have you rolling 1d10 for each individual stat, and selecting the corresponding stat from a chart. Complete Packages is almost identical to Cinematic from 2020 and has the Ref setting the power level of your edgerunners. The stat blocks for Streetrats and Edgerunners have values between 4-8 so using this system will create fairly balanced characters if your Ref wants to make creating an edgerunner as simple as possible for their group. The Life path system has been reduced slightly in some choices to speed up creation, but it has allowed for expanded Role defining characteristics. So each loner of a Solo will have a different tragic back story of revenge and profit.
The most significant changes from 2020 to RED are the Roles or Job classes you can pick. You still have your Rockerboys , Nomads, and Netrunners looking for some easy Eurobucks and looking for trouble along with all the other Roles from 2020, but the Role ability of each has been expanded upon greatly, allowing for you to fine tune your Solo to be the best assassin for hire depending on the situation or training your Tech to be a jack of all trades mechanic or the next Steve Wozniak. There is now rules allowing for cross Role training, but that comes at a steep price. How will you build your edgerunner to survive on the streets of Night City?
Speaking of surviving on the streets, lets get into the basics of Actions and Skills and what is different in the RED. At first glance it can look like RED reduced the amount of Skills available, but all they’ve done is reduce the redundancy of some skills. For example controlling vehicles has gone from six to three. So with RED sitting at around sixty-six different skills not including Role abilities, there should be a skill for just about every situation. Similar to 2020, skills are attributed to Roles depending on which method you created your character. Streetrats have predetermined skills and values, Edgerunners have predetermined skills, but can assign the values as they please and Complete Packages have carte blanche on how they pick their skills and values. Sadly there are no pick up skills so choose wisely. Edgerunners and Complete Packages skills do have a max limit and some skills require a bare minimum, so brick dumb super assassins and world class hackers that can’t spell their name won’t be flooding the streets anytime soon.
Using skills remains relatively identical to 2020 in the RED, it is still a base Stat + Skill value + 1d10 against a Difficulty Value (DV) or a contested role. Critical Success have remained the same. Critical Failures no longer have a fumble table, but instead act like Critical Success where an additional 1d10 is rolled and then subtracted from the final total instead and depending on how sadistic your Referee is things can only get worse from there. The addition of Complimentary Skills, Taking More Time and Trying Again rules allow for different ways of trying to succeed at a Skill Check and keeping the game flowing.
Actions have had some minor tweaks and additions since 2020, but still maintain that each round is about three seconds, and oh yeah, you only have two actions. One for Movement and another to either attack or another common action. Gone are the days of unlimited actions and stacked penalties. Movement has been decreased, so some extra Move (MOVE) stat might be required for a quick getaway or you can just Run, which doubles your movement at the cost of your other action. Dodge/Parry is now an immediate response to an attack, and no longer an action to preempts an attack. Aiming is now a type of attack so say good bye are those boosted shots, and say hello to the newest in smart gun technology, you’ll need the extra help for those extra fast opponents. Drawing or dropping your weapon in the heat of a fight is a free action, but putting it safely in its holster or reloading it will cost you an action. Now we get to the fun part that everyone has been looking forward to and there was a fire fight.
Combat in the time of the RED will feel immediately familiar to all those long in the tooth edgerunners out there, but is also remarkably easy to pick up and understand for these new young bloods looking to make a name for themselves. Initiative is still the same. Ranged attacks DV are still based off distance, but now instead figuring out your weapons range, difficulty to hit, and any modifiers, there is just a handy dandy table for the DV of each corresponding weapon and range. Aimed attacks have been added to RED with allowing for targeted shots against body parts with different effects. Other types of Ranged attacks have been simplified. Suppressive Fire is more streamlined and doesn’t cause damage, but requires a Save to prevent being forced into cover. Full Auto has been replaced by Autofire in the RED, Autofire is a much quicker method of delivering a large burst of damage to a single target at the cost of using a more expensive skill and ten rounds, plus losing the area of effect that Full Auto had previously. Shotguns also have had some adjustments balancing how pellet ammunition has become an area of effect attack with limited range and slugs have been fallen in line with other fire arm ammunition and no longer have a armor piercing ability. Explosives have also been simplified being broken down into Grenades and Rocket Launchers doing a specified amount of damage to a set area with specific rules. So while you can poke and prod your Referee for a super rare plastic explosive that goes beyond the stated rules, just remember they can just as soon turn around and use it on you.
For those edgerunners who prefer to get up close and personal you be right at home with the additions to melee combat. Off the back players will have two initial melee attacks with either a weapon or fist, except for a few exceptions. Melee can be further broken into a few categories of Brawling, Grappling, Martial Arts or Melee Weapons, each with distinct pros and cons. Brawling is the simplest, easiest to learn and also the least effective form of close combat. Going toe to toe with a chromed booster on the edge of cyberpsycosis may not be your best option. The Brawling skill is vital to any attacks under the category of Grappling such as Throws, Chokes and Grabs, so while you can’t knock out a chromer, you can always choke him out. Melee Weapons may be the best option for someone to get up close and personal, whether its that new set of wolvers or you great grandpas katana with its new blade. Not only do they bypass a portion of Armor worn by your opponents, you’re able to make two strikes as mentioned earlier. This can be a quick way of doing a large amount of damage in quick succession putting a hurt on your unlucky opponent. Last, but no least is Martial Arts, this form of close combat is the most nuanced and dangerous. It allows your unarmed edgerunner to bypass armor like a melee weapon, and allows for special abilities that can do significant damage or allow for further control of the battle depending on the martial art chosen from those included in RED. Also all the modifier table to individual attacks like kicks and punches based on different martial arts introduced in 2020 did not carry over. Hopefully more options will be presented in future releases, but Martial Arts evens the playing field for anyone who likes to get hands on.
One important aspect that I have yet to mention is that the opponents aren’t just standing around waiting for their turn to strike back, they’re making things just as tough for you. Dodge has become a core component of combat. In Ranged Combat if you or your target have a high enough REF an attempt to Dodge the incoming projectile is possible using the appropriate skill, resulting in a contested roll instead of a static DV. In Melee Combat each attack will warrant a Dodge attempt irregardless of the targets DV. For the slower combatants they will have to resort to using Cover and Armor to keep their fleshy bits in one piece. Both Armor and Cover rules have been tweaked to provide a much smoother experience as you clear that corporate floor of problems. Armor is now divided among head and body, armor no longer has a soft or hard type, does not stack, armor is ablated each time damage penetrates and depending on the armor reduces various STATS. So tossing on some Metalgear and a few layers of your favorite brand of Kevlar t-shirt on top of that new skin weave won’t be doing you much good when things take a turn for the worse. Armor is now pretty simple, if the damage surpasses the Stopping Power (SP) of the armor, then the remaining damage passes through creating some unwanted ventilation and the armor SP is reduced. If the damage does not surpass the SP of the armor you can count your blessings and return fire. Cover has changed from having an SP modifier to having a set HP value depending on the type of Cover it is. So once that concrete pillar has taken every round of rifle fire it may be time to move or fight back.
So when all the rounds have been fired, the target is no more and you’re counting some Eurobucks it is probably a good idea to patch up any of the holes you may have accumulated on that last job. Wounds and Damage are much different in RED compared to 2020, HP has replaced the damage bar and new wound states are implemented at different HP levels with impacts to Actions, MOVE and possibly increased Critical Injuries. Healing now requires Stabilization, Critical Injuries require either a Quick Fix for immediate use or Treatment permanent repair. If you get patched up you’ll heal your BODY each day if you do nothing, so healing is sped up greatly compared to 2020. There are also a few items that can either increase the healing rate or give and immediate heal, but these are far and few between. Death Saves have not changed much other then Critical Injuries adding negative modifiers to those rolls. You’ll need that extra BODY STAT or a real good Med Tech with a cryo bag, if you bite off more than you can chew. I’ve mentioned Critical Injuries a few times and they are possibly one of the better and scary things added to RED. During an Attack there is the chance to cause increased damage and significant status effect, such as removing or breaking a limb, collapsing an organ, or other horrible things. These Critical Injuries can be applied to both the Head or Body with varying degrees of impairment through random luck or Aimed attacks. Worst case scenario though you can always drop some Eurobucks for that sweet Trauma Team subscription and get them on the scene when things go sideways.
Either right away or eventually when needed, you’ll want to drop your meat boy status and add some chrome or cyberware to your look. Luckily in the RED these rules have not changed much from 2020. EMP still determines your Humanity and every piece of hardware you install on yourself will chip away at that resulting in a lower EMP stat or even worse Cyberpyschosis. The key difference between 2020 and RED is that Cyberpyschosis is actually expanded upon and has some rules added for the player and Referee to incorporate physical and mental trauma into the game. This turns Cyberpyschosis from an immediate flip to a slow and gradual decline that the player has some breathing room to either save or doom their character.
Now onto the most infamous portion of Cyberpunk…Let us discuss Netrunning. In 2020 Netrunning was essentially a rpg in an rpg with the main frame acting as a dungeon crawl for the hacker, while the rest of the team kept themselves occupied in meatspace. In RED the lore and the mechanics have altered the digital world that Netrunners no longer have the luxury of hacking from their fridge, they have to get into the thick of it with their Solos and risk catching a bullet. The mainframes are now localized and the act of hacking your way across the globe to slow down Netcops from tracking you down is at an end. Now the dungeon crawl has been transformed into a elevator type system. As the Netrunner descends and explores each floor they will come across various hindrances and goals associated with that computer or mainframe, all while being able to move and act in meatspace, if needed. In practice this no longer splits the game like 2020, but still is not a full proof fix. Since the Netrunner cannot move, the team can be locked into a guard duty type position while they decrypt and decode without cooking their brain in the digital world. The linear form of the elevator also can feel very limiting reducing that freedom that 2020 offered in explorations. I think that it will be up to the players and Referees to find their own work around if needed, but RED has established some excellent ground work for any Netrunners out there to start digging up data on their favorite corporation.
So for the few of you screw heads that have made it this far you’ll notice that I haven’t covered some topics like the corporations (they’re bad), weapons (they go boom), drugs (very bad…but profitable), and vehicle combat (its good, trust me)6, that’s because trying it out for yourselves will be much more rewarding then hearing me go on about it. RED has been in the works for a long time and the team at R. Talsorian has done a great job of taking what I think made 2020 work and added some new chrome to it. RED is by no means perfect, combat is still extremely dangerous and can put new or unsuspecting players in a meat wagon really quick, Netrunning has been improved, but can still slow down game flow if incorporated poorly, and like any long established game setting the lore can be overwhelming to new players. I’m sure upon release others will find some flaws, but cyberpunk has always been about form over function. It wasn’t what you did that was important, but how good you looked doing it. RED gives a fresh start for the next generation and new adventures for the edgerunners of old who are looking for that next gig. So grab your Minami – 10, kiss your mainline good bye and respond to your local fixer. There is money to be made and remember…Johnny Lives!
