Greetings, programs!
So as I begin writing this, I just recently wrapped up first drafts for the third edition Exalted Alchemicals book, and between that and the Exalted Essence game I'm running, I need a bit of a palate cleanser.
In this context that means building a character, and to change things up a bit I'm doing a system I've neither run nor written for before -- nor even played, for that matter. I picked up the Cyberpunk RED core book for cheap in a sale a while back, and as you may or may not be aware I've always been a fan of the genre. I've even been vaguely aware of the setting since long before the recent video game, as a fan of the old WotC version of the Netrunner card game, which explicitly took place in the Cyberpunk 2020 setting. While the card game didn't deal with a lot that happened outside the Net, it touched on enough that I might've said "Oh shit" out loud when Spider Murphy showed up in the "Love Like Fire" mission in Cyberpunk 2077, not to mention various other names prominent throughout the game.
That's not meant to be a brag about 'old-school' cred, but as with my Trinity Continuum character builds, I enjoy talking about my history with a given game (or, in this case, world). That said, sometimes I do wonder what effect it would have had on me had Cyberpunk been my first non-D&D game instead of Trinity/Æon.
Anyhow, below the cut, I'm gonna get into a character build for Cyberpunk RED.
Okay, now, first off, as I pointed out before, I actually haven't played any iteration of the RPG. I've got the PDF for RED, and IIRC I've got a PDF of an earlier edition with my PC copy of Cyberpunk 2077. But I've skimmed the book and thought it'd be interesting to do a character build as if I'm a new player coming to their first game, more or less, so here we are.
Before I get into it in-depth, I will point out this may come across as little more like a book review than intended because unless I screw something up and have to go back and edit the post as I go, I like to do these as kinda stream-of-consciousness. So certain thoughts will come to me and wind up on the page. I say that to preface that it's actually a hard book to skim in PDF. Most of the bookmarks' names are more evocative than descriptive and you have to dig through to find what you're looking for, or just keep going back to the table of contents. At least the PDF's page references are hyperlinked.
Speaking of which, I'm not going to stop and explain every bit of context for every bit of setting stuff as I go -- this is gonna be long enough as it is -- and so I recommend if you're confused by something, avail yourself of the official wiki or leave a comment on this post. Just remember that this is a game that initially came out in the 80's and took place in 2013, so the divergence of the real world and RPG timelines is pretty far back.
So the game has three modes of character creation:
- Streetrat, which is quick and simple templates intended for new RPG players and people who just need a fresh character RTFN
- Edgerunner, which is similar but with a little more room for customization ('fast and dirty')
- Complete Package, the fully-calculated version where you get 62 points to distribute among Stats and 86 points to distribute among Skills and nopenopenope sorry choom not doing that much for my first character
Edgerunner-style will be fine for me, thank you very much.
#1: Pick a Role
So there are ten Roles, and we pick one: Rockerboy (your Johnny Silverhand types), Solo (mercs and assassins), Netrunner (hacker), Tech (gadgets and repairs), Medtech (self-explanatory), Media (journalist or influencer), Exec (corp junior executive types), Lawman (ACAB -- I mean, presumably PCs are 'the good ones,' but ACAB), Fixer (social networking and business deals), and Nomad (mechanics and drivers who live in wandering tribes outside the cities). I've got a vague concept I've never gotten around to building in the video game (because there's only so many times/ways I can replay a video game), so I'm gonna start from that as a bare-bones concept of a Netrunner from the streets, someone building himself up using patchwork and cobbled-together tech.
So this gives me 4 points in a Role Ability, called Interface. Noted.
#2: Run Your Lifepath
Now I go through a buttload of tables, ostensibly meant to be randomly rolled or alternately chosen if you don't get something you like. Since I kinda have an idea here I'm gonna go with a mix, with the rolls handled by my good friend random.org.
The first of many tables of the 'Personals' section is cultural background, where you and/or your family is from. I'm usually reluctant to play characters from too far outside my own so-white-my-presence-creates-raisins-in-potato-salad heritage for fear of offensively fucking it up, but let's literally roll the dice and see what we get. I rolled a 5, which means Middle Eastern/North African. It's assumed my character speaks Streetslang, a common pidgin language that basically everyone knows, but I also pick a primary language from a list on the table.
So let's skim the history and setting stuff for a moment... I'm thinking the character's family is Egyptian, originally. I'm imagining my character's... (flips coin) ...father was a young corporate programmer talented enough that he got picked up by Netwatch back when it was still private, in the early 00's. This got him and his family out of a portion of the world still suffering from the aftermath of a nuclear war. Some years pass, Dad starts a family, and my character is probably the youngest of a few siblings, maybe born right before they relocated to work with the Netwatch office in Night City to try and contain the damage caused by the DataKrash right after it happened in 2022. Which means that my character would have largely grown up in the aftermath of the 4th Corporate War and the 'Night City holocaust' of 2023, when someone, officially unknown, detonated a nuke in Arasaka Tower that destroyed a massive chunk of the city and killed a lot of people. (If the rest of that sentence didn't make it clear, spoiler warning on that link for Cyberpunk 2077 and content warning for lots of violence and a no-HUB gameplay clip recorded by someone who clearly needed the HUD.)
I believe there's a point later in the Lifepath system more appropriate for figuring out how much of my character's family survived, but I'm thinking that between losing most of what they had (as they would have been living in the portion of the city largely destroyed, now living in the still-rebuilding neighborhood of Watson) and his father's being pretty much chained to his desk at Netwatch desperately trying to salvage the Net, my character was left a little too much freedom to get in trouble growing up. So now this means he'd be in his early 20's, maybe clever enough about Net stuff and fascinated by what's so important it would have brought his family to Night City in the first place and kept them there after everything that happened.
So yeah, meet Abasi Kasto Hossam, 'Bas' to his friends. He probably speaks Arabic like his family, but given the circumstances in which he grew up his primary language will be English, and I get 4 points in that.
Now back to the tables. Next I roll or choose an option to determine the character's personality. Let's roll for this one and see what I get. Rolled a 1, which means 'shy and secretive.' That tracks. He probably lives kind of a double-life, especially if he's getting into netrunning shenanigans and his works for someone who polices that sort of thing (or at least he assumes he does, he can never get his father to open up about his work).
Next is clothing and hairstyle. I roll once for each. That's... another 1, meaning 'Generic chic,' (so probably very simple, t-shirts and cargo pants or something) and 8 for the hairstyle, meaning he keeps it neat and short. And now, an 'affectation you are never without.' Rolled a 2, which means mirrorshades. Hell yeah.
Okay, so far I'm not minding this randomly-rolled character stuff, though I do reserve the right to make deliberate choices or disagree with a rolled result. But let's keep it going. What do I value most? The die came up 5, which means 'Knowledge,' which tracks with what I was saying earlier about wanting to understand all this netrunning stuff. Next, 'How do you feel about most people?' Hm, okay. 10. 'People are wonderful!' Okay, that might be weird and interesting to play up in a game, maybe this is someone who's gleaned some appreciation for people as a whole based on how he's viewed them through the lens of the Net? I have no idea, I'm just going with it.
Next tables are the things I value the most, and let's see... First, for the most valued person in my life, I get 9, which is 'A personal hero.' I might have to think on that one, see what else comes up what I can tie in there. As for the most valued possession I own, that's a musical instrument. Maybe belonging to a family member who died in the war or the fallout from the nuke? Again, gonna think on that.
And now we're getting into personal background stuff, in which I determine my direct background, how I grew up. I'm gonna pick rather than roll for this one. So I'm picking 'Megastructure Warren Rats,' meaning that I grew up in one of those massive apartment complexes like V lives in in the video game, or where David lives at the beginning of the Edgerunners anime. I mean, his dad had a decent job and everything but never fully recovered after what happened. Depending on how much of the family is still around, maybe they're spread out across a couple of apartments.
Next table is childhood environment, and I'm gonna pick for this one, too, and just reinforce that he lived in a huge "megastructure" building controlled by a Corp or the City. And next is... ah-hah. What sort of crisis befell the character's family. Skimming these, there are a couple that couple apply to the situation I've described already (though, I mean if I'm playing in a game run by a person, they might not make me go through all this if I have a concept in mind). But let's just say my family was scattered to the winds due to misfortune. I mean, true enough. So maybe some of Bas' siblings left town or didn't make it.
Next I determine how many friends and enemies my character has. So I roll a d10, subtract 7 (minimum 0), and for each of them roll on a table. And then do that again for enemies. Oof, 3, which means 0 friends. Sad. Well, let's see how I'm doing for enemies. Four, which comes out to 0 enemies and means my character doesn't have a lot of people at his back or at his neck at the moment. Since I don't have any enemies, I can skip the 'Sweet Revenge' table and sort out Bas' tragic love affairs. 6, which still means 0 love affairs. Womp womp.
(Seriously, this is a detailed system.)
Oh, and now we're to the end of the regular Lifepath tables. Determining a life goal. Hm, looking at the list here... I'm gonna roll, but a few of these don't really work so I'm willing to reroll a couple of times here before resorting to just picking one. Rolled an 8, which is 'save, if possible, anyone else involved in your background, like a lover or family member.' So maybe Bas feels the need to save a sibling, or one of his parents -- maybe even save his dad from something awful out there? Something to consider.
And now I'm through the regular Lifepath, I now do a Role-based Lifepath. Oy.
So let's see, first I determine what kind of Runner I am. I roll a d6 for this, and most of these will work so I'll just let the die decide with the option to reroll. Rolled a 5, which means I'm part of a regular team of freelancers. Cool. Next I decide whether I work with a partner or alone, and I'm thinking I work with a partner. Maybe this is the personal hero mentioned before, perhaps mentoring my character. I'll stick a pin in that and flesh them out later. Oh, wait, there's a table for that. Oooh... actually, looking at the list, there's an option here I just gotta pick. 'Secret partner who might be a rogue AI. Might.' Yeah, okay, going with that instead. Eff off, personal hero, I might have an AI buddy.
Next I determine what my workspace is like, and that's... 5, minimalist, clean, and organized. Sure, why not. If he keeps his personal life and 'professional' life separate, he probably doesn't keep a lot of personal touches in whatever he's using for his workspace, which I'm imagining is the back of a coffee shop or something run by the team of freelancers he's working with. Yeah, I like the coffee shop idea.
Anyhow, next I work out who some of my other clients are. A 5 on a d6 says 'local Nomads and Fixers who use me to keep their family systems secure,' which seems plausible and reliable, cash-wise. Next table is where I get my programs, and this is one of those 'roll and maybe reroll' ones because I see a few things I like on this list. And... 1, dig around in abandoned City Zones. Which works for me, fits with the idea I had in mind. Next table is who's gunning for me. Oooh. That's a 3, 'Corporates who want me to work for them exclusively.' I can see that -- my character's some sort of prodigy, his dad works for Netwatch (possibly helping to build the Black Wall), I can see corpos head-hunting him a bit for that.
And that's... oh. Okay, that's all the Lifepath stuff covered.
Alright, let's schlep back to the character creation outline.
#3: Roll Your Statistics (STATS)
Okay, so for this, I go to a special table for stats appropriate to Netrunner and roll for each stat. To clarify, I'm not rolling the number and that is my stat, I'm rolling for a spot on a table which has a number, and they're not all in order. If I were doing the 'Streetkid' version, I'd roll once and pick a whole row which I assume add up to a typical stat distribution. For this, I roll individually, and I'm fine with that. So, 10d10, go!
And that gets me... Int 6, Ref 6, Dex 7, Tech 7, Cool 7, Will 5, Luck 8, Move 7, Body 7, and Emp 5.
#4: Calculate Derived Statistics
And now I derive some statistics, I guess.
First, I work out my hit points, which are based on my Body and Will. Not gonna explain the formula, but there's a handy chart that says I've got... 40HP. And my Seriously Wounded Wound Threshold is half that, at 20.
Next I work out my Humanity, which is ten times my Empathy, so 50. Oof. So Humanity can be reduced, and as it goes lower Bas might actually lose points of Empathy. If your Humanity hits 0, you hit a state known as 'cyberpsychosis' and there's no coming back from that, canonically. One of the common ways that Humanity is lowered is by installing cybernetics, which I know has been a controversial choice in recent years because there's some stuff that overlaps with a lot of ableist tropes ('more machine than man, twisted and evil,' etc.). For what it's worth, this edition of the book goes out of its way to explain that Humanity loss from cyberware doesn't apply to prosthetics meant to replace lost limbs and the like -- only voluntary cyberware that augments someone to superhuman capabilities. You see examples of this in the Edgerunners anime, of people who get addicted to the rush of power that comes with implants and eventually lose their grip on reality. And the 'Cyberpsycho' missions in the video game also touch on the subject that it's not just the implants, but also trauma, existing mental health conditions, and so on.
So on that cheery note...
#5: Set Your Skills
So as an 'Edgerunner,' I get 86 Skill points (which is... a lot) to divide up among a list of 20 based on my Role. No Skill can be higher than 6 or lower than 2, and there's a list of 13 Skills that have to be at least level 2. Hm, let's see... flipping through to compare, Streetrats (the simplest version of character creation) get a pre-determined Skill loadout based on what their Role is, and the Complete Package just lets you spend points however you want. That list of basic requirements is the same across character creation methods and Roles, which admittedly makes me question why not just say 'These Skills start at 2, and you get 60 points to spend on everything else.' I'm almost tempted save time and energy by just using the default Streetrat list.
Also, before I forget, I get 4 points for free in my primary language, which is going to be English.
But okay, let's just do this. First off, let's start by getting those basic requirements to level 2: Athletics, Brawling, Concentration, Conversation, Education, Evasion, First Aid, Human Perception, Language (Streetslang), Local Expert (Your home), Perception, Persuasion, and Stealth. Looking up Local Expert for context, it means I'm an expert on an area no bigger than a neighborhood, so I'm just gonna define 'your home' as Watson, the neighborhood where Bas grew up and lives. (Chris jumping back in later to point out that the character sheet has 'Your home' written in as a Local Expert thing in an uneditable way, so maybe I'm misunderstanding what that means. The book never contextualizes it.)
And I'll be honest, dividing up another 60 points is gonna get real tedious to 'talk out' the way I tend to do these, so I'm just gonna post the final list below rather than go point-by-point:
Athletics 3
Basic Tech 6
Brawling 3
Conceal/Reveal Object 2
Concentration 4
Conversation 3
Cryptography 6
Cybertech 5
Education 2
Electronics/Security Tech 4 (this actually costs double the points, if you're doing the math at home)
Evasion 4
First Aid 4
Handgun 3
Human Perception 3
Language (Arabic) 2
Language (English) 6
Language (Streetslang) 4
Library Search 6
Local Expert (Your home) 4
Perception 6
Persuasion 3
Stealth 3
Okay, next...
#6: Record Weapons, Armor
Okay, and it looks like Streetrats and Edgerunners get predetermined starting gear loadouts, and then some cash to spend on other gear later. It's a little awkwardly-written, as it's inconsistently-written as to whether Streetrats and Edgerunners get the same lists. But I'm 99% sure they do, which gives me a Very Heavy Pistol, 30 rounds of ammo for it, and body and head armor made of something referred to as 'Light Armorjack,' which is apparently a combination of Kevlar and plastic meshes worked into the weave of the fabric.
And it looks like we get into that extra gear next.
#7: Record Outfit
I'll be honest, there are few things I find more tedious than spending money on gear, especially at character creation. I've done my share of "oooh, loot!" moments in D&D, and I even ran Hackmaster 4th Edition once upon a time, which was one of those 'earn experience by acquiring wealth' versions of the D&D rules.
And... oh, okay, I haven't even gotten into that part yet. There's a pre-selected gear template like there is with weapons and armor, and this is clearer in that it's meant for both the Streetrat and Edgerunner styles of character creation.
I start with an Agent (magic future super-phone), a Cyberdeck with seven slots, Virtuality Goggles (which lets me hack things through an AR interface in the field), and a bunch of programs, including a few options where I have to pick one of two. Okay, lemme take a look at these... I start with a copy each of Armor and Sword, which do basically what you'd expect. And then, hm... okay, some of these let me pick Sword again, which means that I can use multiple copies of Sword per turn. Huh. I'll keep that in mind.
Okay, I'm also going to take See Ya, which helps me find my way around a system, Worm, which helps me hack past passwords, and... hm. I've gotta pick another copy of Sword, or a copy of Vrizzbolt, the latter of which is specifically meant to target other Netrunners. Yikes. Bas is gonna stick with an extra copy of Sword, he'd rather not fight another Netrunner in the system if he can help it.
And, because the game keeps track of this, I get a bunch of clothes options I can use to customize my wardrobe. Mostly 'Generic Chic' and 'Leisurewear' stuff, but I do get a really nice jacket (classified as 'Urban Flash'). That's odd, but there's probably something where that matters.
Now, I sort out 'Lifestyle and Housing.' Since I'm not an Exec, apparently it's determined for me that I'm living in a rented Cargo Container either in the suburbs or a Combat Zone, and I'm living a Kibble Lifestyle, which means I'm living on food I wouldn't feed my own beloved pets and maybe I can see a movie or a braindance once a month. (BTW, this applies to all 'levels' of character creation, even if you've got the Complete Package. Unless you're an Exec.)
So apparently you have to work up to V's shitty hole-in-the-wall Megabuilding apartment in the video game. I wish someone had warned me about that before I'd imagined a living situation for my character.
Oh, and I also generously get the first in-game month's rent covered, after which I gotta pay. But, I mean, I guess part of the game is making the cash to survive through shady means, just... ah well, I think I'm almost done with this character, if I want to review the game I can do that in another post.
Anyhow, I've got 500eb (Eurobucks, or eddies as they're often called in the video game) to spend on other gear, but my already-low enthusiasm for sifting through granular equipment lists is actually a little dulled by finding out the book mandates where I'm starting. (I'm genuinely hoping people running the game aren't as strict as the book assumes.) So I'm just gonna save the 500 eddies and move on to the final step.
#8: Record Cyberware
Streetrats and Edgerunners get pre-set loadouts of implants and such, with the Humanity Loss already mathed out for you. So I start with Interface Plugs (those ubiquitous-in-the-video-game wrist cables), a Neural Link (the nervous system upgrade that makes brain implants doable at all), and Shift Tacts (which are, apparently, optical implants that give me an alternate eye color). And that all comes with a loss of 14 Humanity, which lowers my EMP by 2. Whoo.
And that, I think, is it. Again, not trying to review the book, and I did breeze past a lot of details, especially on the equipment, but this is a much more granular system than is usually my taste these days. Maybe I'd have more fun with it with an actual group at an actual table, but we'll see. For now, here's the character sheet.
Quick addendum: I typed this out and then came back later to fill out the official fillable character sheet, only to discover it doesn't actually have the space for most of the Lifepath answers. Am I just supposed to record the numbers? Eff it, I'm not going to go looking for an alternate sheet, I'm gonna make do.
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