Happy @FreeRPGDay !!!

This year the offerings include Cyberpunk RED Easy Mode, an introduction to the classic game of the Dark Future. This 48 page booklet (including covers) comes with everything you need to try out the game and a few goodies besides! Here’s a quick tour.

A list of gangs operating in Night City in 2045 (as revealed thus far):

6th Street: A protector gang made up of 4th Corp War veterans.

The Bozos: A warped prankster gang. Sadistic, murdering clowns.

1/11 The Inquisitors: A cult who think cyberware is unnatural. They'll rip it right out of you.

Iron Sights: A booster gang originally funded by Arasaka. They have a new patron now.

Maelstrom: A combat gang slowly transforming into cyber-extremists over time.

2/11

The "everyone meets in a tavern" equivalent for Cyberpunk tends to be "everyone is brought together by a Fixer for a job". The street merc campaign can be GREAT! but let's see if we can't punk it up a bit and come up with 5 different ideas for a CP:RED campaign!
1/ Before we start, we'd like to point out pages 390 to 392 of the Cyberpunk RED core rulebook. There's some great ideas there for different "teams" you can form, ranging from Neocorp squads to Trauma Teams to Media squads. We'll be supplementing that list, not borrowing from it.
2/

Need something extra to boost your Cyberpunk RED game over the Edge? Here's a list of our amazing licensees who make wicked cool Cyberpunk RED stuff!
In no particular order.

1/ If you love moving little people around little dioramas, @MonsterFight31 has what you need with the Cyberpunk RED miniatures line!

2/

Let's talk fashion in Cyberpunk RED.

The first of the rules of being cyberpunk is "Style over Substance". Obviously, what you wear plays a big part in that. Fashion forms one of the pillars of self-expression (or cultural assimilation) in society.

1/ There are 10 fashion types listed in the Cyberpunk RED core rulebook. There are more fashion styles out there, of course, but these form a baseline of what's commonly worn in Night City in 2045. If need be, you can easily reskin them.

2/

How Sausage (the TTRPG) is made.

Curious about how a TTRPG company tackles the process of creating a TTRPG book?

Let's do a thread!

1/ First, a caveat: Every company is different. Every product is different. The steps we're about to lay out are generally accurate but will change from company to company and even product to product within the same company.

That being said, let's dive in!

2/

Let's chat about the Satanic Panic and TTRPGs. Some of you are young enough you might not remember it.

The 1980s were an important time for tabletop gaming. TTRPGs were growing. D&D hit the mainstream with a cartoon, action figures, and novels. The hobby was, in a word, huge. 1/ The 80s were also a weird time for America. Many people grew concerned about the mortal state of the country. Crack cocaine use was up. People were dying from HIV/AIDS. MTV was showing Michael Jackson dance with zombies. Clearly, America's youth had lost their way. 2/

The Complimentary Skill Check rule in Cyberpunk RED is powerful! Don't sleep on it. Here's a five reasons why:

1. They allow you to retry failed Skill Checks, since it represents a "new way" of approaching a problem.

1/ 2. A Complimentary Skill Check represents how being good at one thing impacts another. You might not roll Language (Italian) to bribe the Biotechnica door guard BUT Language (Italian) can be a great Complimentary Skill for your Bribery Check.

2/

In Cyberpunk RED, everyone begins with at least 4 Levels in their native language and at least 2 Levels in Streetslang.

By 2020, dozens of languages spoken regularly in Night City. 1/ Common languages included (but weren't limited to) English, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Italian, and Bantu Swahili.

As is the case in multilingual settings, a trade pidgin language developed. 2/

When we first published the Cyberpunk RED Jumpstart Kit, the idea of a "scarcity economy" due problems with the global shipping infrastructure generated a lot of discussion. Some gamers had trouble wrapping their heads around the idea. 1/ Nearly two years later, we're seeing some of the economic ideas Mike laid out in Cyberpunk RED hitting us hard. While we're mostly past the "I can't find toilet paper stage", grocery stores in the United States till have a large number of "bald patches" on their shelves. 2/

Keen-eyed readers of the Cyberpunk RED core rulebook might have noticed some differences between the Night City map in 2045 and the Night City map in 2077. Locations, and even entire districts, have seemingly moved! Is this due to a mistake? A reboot? A retcon? 1/ Nothing of the kind! Buckle up, chooms. We're gonna show a bit of the thought process in how the Night City of 2045 turned into the Night City of 2077. We'll start with establishing three facts about Night City. 2/

We noticed a recent post suggesting a list of topics missing from the Cyberpunk 2020/RED/2077 universe that should be included for a more modern take on the genre. And we thought it might be fun to address them point by point. So, warning, this'll be a thread. 1/ Also, we fully acknowledge there's a lot of different ways to approach the cyberpunk genre. No two stories, from Akira to Neuromancer to Deadpan Alley to VA11-HALL-A, will approach the genre in the same way. 2/

The vast majority of the cyberware listed in RED exists for gamification purposes. Skate feet make you move faster. Rippers are a weapon. Chyron displays project HUD onto your eyeball. And so forth.

That doesn't mean other cyberware doesn't exist. Just that we, at the moment at least, aren't making specific rules about having it. For example, in RED, there are implants that inject your medication into your bloodstream following a certain schedule or upon detecting specific signals from your Biomonitor.

Let’s take a peek at the Cyberpunk RED core rulebook, shall we? Maybe a sneak peek of the inside?

Mekton Zeta #lifepath (1)

We'll explain this one a bit, since it isn't quite as famous as Cyberpunk or the Witcher. Mekton was our first RPG and is all about giant robots and their pilots. Inspired by Gundam, among other things, the game doesn't center on a single setting but Mekton Zeta #lifepath (2)

instead gives gamers the tools they need to simulate the giant robot setting/style of their choosing, from the Top Gun Soap Opera of Robotech to the dating sim style of Sakura Wars to the sentai-mimicing Voltron and beyond.