Single Player Mode Sneak Preview #2
Solo play lives and dies thanks to lists and tables: randomized but themed collections and information that can emulate a GM’s ability to improvise on the spot by inspiring and surprising. Single Player Mode, our upcoming solo play guide, and Gamemaster Emulator for Cyberpunk RED, contains over 100 lists and tables fine-tuned to the Dark Future. Whether you’re a solo player looking to keep Night City random or a GM looking for inspiration, we promise these lists and tables will improve your game.
Let’s take a tour through what you’re getting with Single Player Mode.
We begin with words. One hundred verbs, one hundred nouns, and one hundred adjectives useful for providing color and inspiration. Next, sights, sounds, and smells to help describe the scene.
Next, we explore Night City itself. Starting with random districts, then growing more specific. First, generic location types (data center, day market, ripperdoc clinic, etc) based on security level. Then, specific places to live, broken up by housing type. Finally, specific hotspots and bars.
Night City isn’t just places, but people as well. Lists here include randomized factions broken down into corporations, criminal organizations, gangs, law enforcement/security groups, and nomad nations. Generic types of people you might encounter in Night City, based on area security rating. One hundred masculine, feminine, and nonbinary names to help give new NPCs identities. Plus, moods to help determine their attitude at the moment.
If you need something more specific, we’ve created tables of NPCs based on role. So, ten Execs, ten Fixers, ten Lawmen, and so forth. All named and with short descriptions.
Things are next. Random fashion, fashionware, Black ICE, firearms, kibble, Triti-Fizz, and advertisement tables to help populate your world. Plus huge, flavorful loot tables based on the type of corpse being searched. Rounding out the Things section are radio stations and a randomized list of television programs.
We follow that up with Mission Generation. First, a table for Mission Types. Then one for mission macguffins. Beat chart tables come next, so you can randomly generate hooks, cliffhangers, developments, climaxes, and resolutions. We follow that up with plot twists to make missions more interesting, and a set of random encounter charts broken up by area type and time of day.
Finally, we include “random things” lists. Empty lists broken down by probability, running from three items to twenty items. Need to generate something at random? Just plug the items into the right table from this section, and you’ll have the odds already figured out for you. No need to math.
We round out Single Player Mode with blank forms to help you track your play. Use them to detail your NPCs, record your Solo Play Clocks, work through investigation and social challenge scenes, track Quick and Dirty combat and Netrunning, build missions, and keep tabs on your IP spending.
Thanks for joining us on our preview of Single Player Mode. It should be out soon (or might already be out if you’re reading this in the future), so please consider picking it up! It’ll enhance your game, whether you play solo or with a group.
Until next time, stay safe on The Street.
J Gray
Cyberpunk RED Line Manager
