It has been years in the making and waiting and it has been well worth it.

In a game where heartless corporations are one of it's antagonists, Cyberpunk Red arrives with it's heart fully intact and beating stronger than ever.

From the beginning, way back in 1988 when Cyberpunk 2013 hit the scene to today's Cyberpunk Red this has always been the creation of Mike Pondsmith. Yes, there is a small group who helped write Red but the heart and soul will always be that of Mike Pondsmith. Many games who survive that long usually end up in other hands and sometimes that can work, sometimes not. Sometimes when it seems to work what you really get is a workable system that is clearly the product of a corporation that (no matter what smiling face they paste on it) just want your money. What struck me immediately when reading Red was the complete opposite of corporate coldness. First thing, even before you realize that it's an amazing RPG, is that it's an amazing read on it's own. And it's a fun read as well. Immersive and detailed but never boring. I've been with this game from the beginning but if I were completely new I would feel comfortably up to speed even before reaching any of the rules sections.

The rules themselves make this one of the best RPG's ever written. Just the character creation section alone gives you three distinct styles to choose from which range from no crunch to full crunch. Each method gives you a fully fleshed out character depending on what you want.

The rest of the basic rules such as fighting, hacking and the like all have just the right amount of crunch without leaving new and old players alike with a raging headache. Tons of detail but written in an accessible way. I haven't even touched on the rest of it (including the fantastic art throughout) that helps you as a player or game master immerse yourself into this fully realized game.

I have also ordered a physical copy and look forward to it's arrival.

For further comments please see mine in the discussions section.

Bravo to all involved.

An easy 10/10.

"Cyberpunk Red is not a tie-in game, it’s the next edition of Cyberpunk 2020. This means mixing new layout with old rules, and 2020s social awareness with 1980s cheese. I’m not going to say it’s the next big thing in tabletop. I am, however, going to play the hell out of it." - Aaron Marks

Read the full CHG review here: https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2020/11/13/cyberpunk-red-review/

Picked this up as a friend wanted to run Cyberpunk, having read through, it feels half finished. There has been minimal editting and rules and stats for items are scattered throughout the book or in some cases entirely absent. The publisher has stated that they have no intention of fixing any of this. There are some sections that are obviously copied from previous books, making reference to sidebars that don't exist.

If you dig past the formatting and typos there's a decent system there, with an interesting, if shallow world. The combat is rather crunchy and armour rules seem a little poorly thought out (AP rounds halve armour and halve the damage dealt so they're only helpful in very bands of armour and damage) but it seems workable if unrealistic.

Character generation is difficult due to the formattng but it gives a fair number of options and interfaces well with the world. It's not standard cyberpunk - none of the standard cyberware you might expect as this is set following the standard era. I feel the lack of personal cost associated with power is a little out of character for the setting, this is Cyberpunk by name and heritage but less so in flavour.

I feel I need to mention the art as it's something I'd heard about before getting the book. It's bad. It's made up of photos of dolls with various bits of wiring and tech stuck to them and it looks both really janky and also out of character for the setting. It's not a dealbreaker (I'm assuming you weren't planning on buying this for the art) but I thought it was worth mentioning.

All in all, I think there a better systems out there, but this is workable and has plenty of flavour. It's not classic cyberpunk but it's not trying to be.

Well this is the GM's Screen Pack.

I own both the pdf version and the physical screen.

I have rated this product at 2 but I would give the physical version another for 3. The screen it's self is well made physcially, heavy duty and good quality and would rate the extra.

Frankly the pdf version is something of a disapointment.

The art on the outside of the GM's screen is cool and all but not much use in a pdf. The Gm's side ... has some of the tables you'll need to run the game but by no means all of them and a bunch more useless art. Oh it's pretty but I want functionalty. I've used this both printed out and the actual physical screen. In both cases I still had to be paging through the rule book to find extra tables. The trickest tables (crit results) are missing whereas how to heal them is. We do get costs for beer and lodging though? Combat in the Witcher is crunchy. I'm happy looking up the price of beer or a room or a hooker for the night but I really could have used the various crit tables right there guys! Frankly if you own the pdf of the main rules it would be better to print out the right tables and use them.

The rules expansion book gives us halflings (booooooo to generic fantasy races) a bunch of npc types (okay I guess) and the new Noble profession (which is pretty good) and some very back of a envelope rules on having a holding of land. The player and gm info is all sort of mashed together and frankly is not all that well edited together.

If I compare this to the only other new GM's screen I've bought lately :- Chaosium's GM's screen pack for Runequest Glorantha. Well it's night and day even at twice the price (for pdf version) it's just so much better. The screen itself has just as much great art but the Gm's side is loaded with really useful information and tables and I didnt have to go looking for extra's more than once in a while. The booklet that comes with it is much larger and has a ton of really well written scenario's and a sandbox setting. Frankly you could get years worth of play out of that thing. And the physical version comparison is even worse as then the price is much closer for two very well made screens. The RQG one is has better info and by being flipped to landscape panels covers a greater estate and just works better, both are of great build quality though, neither is flimsy and feel they's last getting hauled around.

I love dark gritty (but not grimdark) RPG's. I've played a couple of the Witcher Computer Games. I've read some of the books. I've watched and loved the TV series. So the Witcher TTRPG seemed like an obvious choice and a while ago a friend of mine offered to run a game. We've had great fun. I've just recently started running my own game for a different set of players and session 1 was last night and included chunks from "Easy Mode" so this seemed like a good time to review it.

So what is Witcher :- Easy Mode and how good is it?

It's the quick start pack.

First off three pages of Lore. Not really needed if you have soaked up a chunk of the setting but as 2/5 my players had somehow avoided it this was useful. Then there are a bunch of pregen characters and a primer on how to read the character sheet. Very handy. We all rolled up characters but still good to have.

Then there are a cut down version of the various rules to allow a gm to run a simple adventure. These are well presented and fairly easy to use. Be aware that even the cut down rules are quite crunchy.

Then there's a very short adventure. Which gives 3 encounters. Enough for taster at least.

It's a good product. I'd say the weakness is the brevity of the intro scenario. Compared to the Cyberpunk Project Red kit which gives a lot more plot hooks and room for Gm's to play. If you're a real fan of the Witcher I'd say go for the main rules to start with, if you're on the edge then pick this up as pdf and have a go, its free after all.

This is a good supplement for a promising system from a trustworthy publisher, which makes the numerous spelling errors kind of baffling.

Excellent work by R Talsorian on this one; it's been years since I read through a sourcebook this fast. So, basically what you get here, game mechanics speaking, is a lot more monsters (including a couple categories at the end of higher intelligence monsters you could even play as characters with their lifepaths), some monster components (for the alchemy side of things), an investigation system which I haven't had a chance to try out yet, but looks pretty good, and I do like how they made it so a wide variety of skills can help with the detective work so characters of almost any build could probably find ways to be helpful; and some sample contracts at the end that you could use as player handouts or just give you a pool of ideas to help you make your own.

Where this product really stands out, though, is the "fluff." The book is presented as information gleaned from a discovered journal of a former Grandmaster Witcher. Erland is an interesting character, definitely not just some numbers filed off Gryphon School version of Geralt; I could read an entire book just about him and his adventures. The book begins with Erland's background story in his own words (and gives you an interesting look at the earliest days of the Witchers), and he provides sidebars of his own thoughts on various monsters throughout. Between each category of creature (Necrophages, Relicts, etc) you also get a short story of one of his hunts (and he's definitely Gryphon School so you'll be seeing lots of Signs usage). Even if you aren't into PnP RPGs, maybe you're just a fan of the Witcher universe, this is a highly-recommended book.

Just spent all morning tearing through the 160 page pdf, and I am very impressed!

It starts with 7 full text pages of witcher lore and history, from the perspective of Erland of Larvik, the first Grandmaster of the Gryphon School. Its grounded and feel very usable.

Following that, we're introduced to the new improved stat blocks. I can't overstate how useful it is to have the attack and defence Base scores easily listed, in addition to the Base of their most relevant skills. Past that, monsters are divided into their type, each section starting with a little overview, with notes from our good friend Erland.

DO NOT OVERLOOK the sidebars on these pages, labeled "[Type] Encounters." They're not long, but offer adventure hooks and ideas for how these monsters might naturally fit into an adventure. And honestly, they're just really good ideas and launching points.

The monsters themselves are well thought out, and dripping with personality. The design team clearly wanted to make each of these feel unique to fight, and as a result we see each monster having a few unique abilities, sometimes even 5 or 6.

After every monster type, we're treated to a one page short story of my Gryphon boi Erland hunting and fighting one of the monsters from the section. They're cool and fun and if nothing else, offer another encounter idea to steal.

Next up, Exceptional Monsters. Both True Dragons and Higher Vampires get the deep dive in this book, each getting a multi page lore section, and a multi page lifepath, before their new expanded stat blocks. All of this is very cool and super useful.

Then a short section going over the new components and mutagens. As expected.

The following 9 pages go over the new Investigation system. I need to go over it more, but at first glance, it seems similar to the spirit of the Verbal Combat system. It's interesting, and very complex. You have a new derived stat called Focus, which is tge average between your Will and Intelligence. There's a new damage formula for defeating the mystery (Complexity Damage = Clue Damage Roll – Obfuscation). I'm sure there's some very cool things that could be done with it, but it seems to be centered for a group that prefers rolling dice than role-playing.

The final handful of pages have an array of job postings. Great flavor, great ideas, and are written vague enough to be used wholesale.

TL;DR In summary, great layout, beautiful art. As a GM, I highly recommend it. Its chocked full of useful things, and won't be just a dust collector. As a player, understand that this book is (mechanically) for the person running the game. But, its got OODLES of lore and is a thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone who loves the Witcher universe. For a $15 pdf, its worth every penny. I'll be ordering a solid copy too as soon as I get a bigger bookshelf.

I really want to love this game. I love the genre, I love the setting. I'm excited for the full version of the game.

As a starter set this product has many good qualities, but it is also lacking in many areas. I ran my first session last night, and we had a blast, but I had to do a lot of house ruling to make up for the lack of detail in the rules of the Jumpstart Kit.

Where to start...

Firstly the writing. It is written in a very conversational tone, which makes for enjoyable casual reading, but the downside is that it is not as useful as a rules reference. Sometimes important rules are kind of tucked away in the conversational sentences.

The rules themselves are a bit all over the place and don't always make sense for the world. For example, a "slice and dice", which is described as a highly dangerous monofiliment whip, but it only does 2d6 damage. Most edgerunners are walking around with at least 11 points of armour (damage reduction), so it wouldn't even hurt a typical character. Furthermore, although they are described as being easily able to slice through any organic material, there's nothing mechanically that gives them any kind of special armour penetration to match the fluff. Firearm damage is also highly variable, and there are no pages with costs or ammo counts or anything like that in the book. There is a range chart, and damage values for different types of guns but that's it. There are rules for burst fire, but no rules for full automatic fire. For some reason a character can attack in melee twice as an action but can only shoot once. I'm not sure why attacking with a melee weapon is so much easier than shooting someone with a firearm?

Armour is quite powerful, and for some reason it is assumed that armour covers your entire body, including your head even if you are just wearing an armoured jacket. A light armoured jacket has a 11 stopping power, and a heavy pistol does 3d6 damage, so a character with a light armour jacket will only rarely be injured by a heavy pistol. A heavy armour jacket has 15 stopping power, so even an assualt rifle, which does 5d6 damage won't hurt that much. One thing I do like is that if the armour does take damage it degrades by a point, so over time it gets weaker and eventually the character will take damage and armour will need to be repaired or replaced.

I should also mention that there are no prices to be found for ANY gear in this book. The cyberware selection is highly limited.

There are also no character creation rules or character advancement rules, so you pretty much are limited to using the pregens, which aren't really even complete because only the special ability of the Netrunner is detailed.

When I ran my game last night, I found myself winging it to make up prices for equipment. I created some house rules for armour pentration, so that some weapons that would otherwise be useless could actually be cool. I also house ruled that armour would only protect the locations it would actually cover (a crazy idea), and I added in a hit location table. All in all, I think these house rules made the game a lot more playable and we had a lot of fun, but that was more a testament to my 30+ years of experience as a GM and having good players than to the rules.

In conclusion, I think this game has a lot of potential, and I hope that the final game delivers on that potential, but I don't think the Jumpstart Kit is really that well done. It is a tease, and and as a GM I found it frustrating to work with because there is so much missing.

Overall great reprint. The only negative were a few torn corners.

As good as it was in the days it came out. This reignighted my love for the genre.

Now, if only Mike Pondsmith and R.Talsorian could make an Aliens (Old school, like the movies Alien, and Aliens) Tabletop RPG instead of the other peeps. I need a reason to bust out my Xenomorph and Colonial Marine minis!

I think this is my favorite trad game. I love the setting and the lore presented and it was clear for a table who had never played an RPG. I'm much more of the GMless or PbtA-like games but I'll gladly play and GM Cyberpunk Red when it finally releases

I played the previous version of Cyberpunk, and I am a fan. This version is the "Jump Start" version has limited version of the rules (hence the Jump Start), so you cannot make a character. That disapointed me more than anything; in most quick start version of games they give you more options and give you a little insight into how characters are made. I am assuming it is similar to the previous version, but I don't have any idea how to make a character based on this version, which is less than a lot of free versions in other game systems; kind of stingy.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the cut outs and maps included in this edition. It is great for online games or even games at the table. It has some maps appropriate to the setting at included, but it doesn't have anwhere to go from there. It seems a bit pricy for what it is (maybe if you had two more scenarios included with some character advancement or gear offered it would be worth it?), but the maps and tokens definately add to the value.

This one is a goof RPG. It works very well for that, an as long as you understand that this is meant to be a comedy game, you will have a blast. I do not think the tone of the book is condusive for a "serious game" but it works for a general anime style RPG where you want to fight with giant mechs in a life and death struggle, then be hit with a paper fan by your high school crush. It does what it sets out to do, so I think it is a good game for a very specific type of game.

My group would find it hard to do a long term campaign with this game, but personal tastes vary. I am deffinatley adding it to the one shot palate cleanser. The possibility for comedy is just too high.

I have enjoyed every game I have played in this syste.

Monster-hunting in a grim fantasy world - a Mephisto review

# The Witcher The witchers are a special species. Originally they were bred to hunt monsters that were born through something called the conjunction of the spheres. The witchers are no longer normal humans, but mutants with lightning-fast reflexes and enhanced senses. Well equipped and perfectly trained, they face the fight against all kinds of monsters that terrorize the world. However, as these monsters become increasingly rare, the services of the witchers are also less and less needed. In the meantime, they became also feared and hated as mutants.

In fact, mistrust and hatred are omnipresent in the world of Witcher, because there are always open conflicts between the humans on one side and the elves and dwarves on the other side. Elves and dwarves have been pushed back into a niche and sometimes face open persecution. Some of them, therefore, resist with violence. After the betrayal of some mages, most of the magic users are now suspicious and feared in many places. The fact that the northern kingdoms are divided, and there is the threat of war with the empire of Nilfgaard has made times even darker. All this provides the dark backdrop against which adventurers can try to make their fortune - or simply survive.

The Witcher in roleplaying

The Witcher has become a well-known figure in the roleplaying scene - probably less because of the original novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, but more because of the computer roleplaying game series. In the meantime, a pen&paper roleplaying game has been released, which takes place in the world of the monster hunter.

The roleplaying game presents itself as a typical fantasy roleplaying game in which the players first choose one of the races and then a profession accordingly. When choosing whether characters are humans, witchers, elves, or dwarves, not only their abilities play a role, but also the social status of the individual groups. For example, in the north, elves are hated, and dwarves are only tolerated, while in the empire of Nilfgaard, these races are considered equal. Before the profession is chosen, the so-called life path is followed, where random dice results and tables can be used to define the background. This is about what happened to the family, the status of the family, friends, descendants, etc. and what special events happened in the life of the character.

The next step is to choose the professions, which always have a defining special skill that only they can master and which can later be expanded in three directions. It also determines which skills the character can invest points for at the beginning, which magical abilities (if any) are available, and which starting equipment can be selected. The professions include classics like bards, mages, fighters, priests, and, of course, witchers. But also professions like merchants, doctors, or craftsmen are available. In the game, the statistics are represented by attributes and skills. Tests always work according to the principle that an attribute and a skill are combined and added to the roll of a ten-sided die. The result must either beat a fixed difficulty or achieve a higher value than the opponent.

A special feature of the special abilities of each profession is that they can be expanded from their starting value in three different ways in three levels so that a fighter can develop more easily into a marksman, a bounty hunter, or a melee fighter.

The world of Witcher

The game provides a large arsenal of equipment, here above all weapons and armor, which besides the usual suspects, also contain the specialties typical for the setting. In the case of armor and weapons, there is the possibility of upgrading them. In general, Witcher offers a system to create or improve items by crafting yourself. Crafting always assumes that you have a so-called diagram (i.e., a kind of building instruction) and the necessary raw materials. Besides the production of equipment, an alchemy system also offers the possibility to produce special mystical brews.

In Witcher, magic works in such a way that a mage has to channel the magical energies through his body, which is a risk. If these energies become too strong and get out of control, they can cause damage. Magic is divided into four elements and their mixture. It offers different spells at three levels. In addition, there are the priests, who have their invocations, the quick, magical gestures of the Witcher, as well as rituals and witchcraft, which all work a little differently and offer many possibilities for magic.

Tough battles in a dangerous world

A large part of the rules is devoted to the topic of combat. The combat system is designed in such a way that both hit zones play a role, and critical hits can quickly lead to heavy damage. The approach of this fighting system is that fights should remain dangerous and always unpredictable to pose a threat in the brutal world of Witcher.

The rest of the book introduces the northern kingdoms and the empire of Nilfgaard. It also provides the character profiles of the most important characters from the Witcher series at the beginning of the book. In a separate chapter, the game master is taken by the hand and gets hints on how to deal with topics such as racism between humans, elves and dwarves, and the dark setting. Of course, the book does not do without a whole series of monsters that can serve as enemies. Especially the Witchers get their own chapter because their character creation is a bit different, and they can have special equipment. A short adventure provides a practical start for the setting.

The Witcher picks up a popular novel and computer game setting and presents it as a game for classic pen&paper gaming. It is a little bit striking that here the Witchers represent the most exciting game characters at first sight, but usually, only one Witcher should be included in the group. This can lead to imbalances in the group, even if the other professions are not really disadvantaged. The rules are based on classic concepts like professions, etc., but present them in their own style. Even when the setting is introduced, the reader quickly realizes that knowledge of computer games and/or novels is certainly an advantage. For example, the typical weapons of the country are described, but illustrations are missing. The short sections about the local kingdoms rather overwhelm the reader with facts than to create a picture in his head. It was undoubtedly a challenge for the authors to write something about the areas that have not been in focus in novels and computer games so far. With its solid layout and well-presented color illustrations, Witcher is visually well designed.

In my opinion, the fantasy system is mainly aimed at those who specifically want to play within the setting of Witcher. But also those who are looking for a dark fantasy setting, where intrigues threaten before a looming war, where monsters roam the countryside, where nobody can really trust anybody, and where a fight ends badly often, should take a look at this system.

(Björn Lippold)