Review: Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit

Yo, wassup, netrunners?

I love that you came to my humble crib on the net and came looking for my opinion on one of the best products and long awaited products of the year.

In august of 2019 this product was released to the public and received tremendously well.

I reached out to R. Talosorian games and received a physical copy. (Thanks to the team over there).

What you get?
You get the same things as in the downloadable edition, except the dice. The dice are extra. The dice are produced by Q-workshop and look awesome with their red on black colour scheme.

What I really like about the physical copy are the maps and the standees. It gives a visual representation of the space, and make it easier to get into the story and see things play out, although I love to play without, it is a nice extra.

The character sheets you get are pre-generated, but you get six stats per character, so you can customize them on your own too. You roll the lifepath with the charts in the booklet, so you create your own unique character, even though these are pre-generated.

The standees in the physical copy are printed on thick cardboard, as you would expect from tabletop game pieces and will surely stand the test of time.

The rules are simplified, but adhere to the feel and aesthetic of cyberpunk 2020 so converting rules and things from 2020 to red shouldn’t be to difficult is already being undertaken by people over at reddit.

I really love the presentation of the box and how the stories are told in the booklets, which are a pleasure to read, even if you never are going to play the game.

What I also like is the starter adventure, which gives you enough guidance to start and enough open space to do your own thing. I, a soloplayer, can easily get several playsession out of this, but they included screamsheets (newspaper format adventures) which easily give me a lot of sessions extra.

I love that the game is easy enough to understand, but gives extra complexity so that it becomes challenging enough. It takes a bit of numbercrunching but not to much, so that it becomes a burden. I hope they keep this approach for the full rulebook whenever that is released.

A great addition to the linup would be supplements with only screamcheats to help Solo-gm’s or GM’s with little time to prepare to set up enjoyable sessions in a minimal timeframe.

I really like the product and if you are new to tabletop roleplaying, this is a great starter. Not overly complex, and not to easy either.