Table-Tested Review of Cyberpunk Red’s Reaper Storyline
The “Reaper storyline”, as I call it, is a mini campaign for Cyberpunk Red about a rogue AI called Reaper who manipulates and controls Netrunners. The story starts in the screamsheets (adventures with one or two pages, always starting with an in-lore newspaper article) of the “Data Pack” and culminates in one of the adventures in “Tales of the Red: Street Stories”. The first two adventures are the screamsheets “The Digital Divas Burn it Down” and “Don't Fear the Reaper”, which run a short session each, and the storyline finishes with the adventure “Reaping the Reaper”, which took us about two sessions. I ran this for a group completely new to Cyberpunk Red in the hopes that a mini campaign would show off the system better than a one-shot would, but met mixed success due to differing expectations, but also some shortcomings in the adventures.
But before I dive in, some quick facts.
- Publication Year: 2021 (Data Pack) and 2022 (Tales of the Red: Street Stories)
- Page Count: 24 (all adventures total)
“The Digital Divas Burn it Down”
content warnings: suicide, self-immolation, mind control, nazi symbols
Screamsheets are often sparse with their information and this is one of those cases. The crew is hired to serve as security at a concert of the Digital Divas. Soon they will be stopping hostile security guards from shutting the concert down, all while needing to keep an eye out for an arsonist.
The adventure tells you to use the Security Operative as a stat block (sporting an assault rifle and a heavy pistol), which seemed a bit of overkill to stop an illegal concert and I would have liked a stat block with some melee options right out of the box. And some dialogue recommendations.
Other NPCs included are a girl who jumps right into traffic (which stays unresolved until the next adventure), a woman who sets fires for unknown reasons (which also stays unresolved) and a guy with nazi tattoos (same guns as the security operatives?!) as a red herring, which I found a bit weird, at best, problematic at worst, to bring up without any other context, especially since he’s otherwise not really intended as an enemy.
There is only one real location, not much structure and the session ends with more questions than answers. Overall, I can’t recommend running this without major alterations.
“Don't Fear the Reaper”
content warnings: suicide, gore
The crew is hired by Major Veronica Stiles to investigate the death of her daughter (who jumped into traffic the last session) and meet in the Forlorn Hope, an iconic bar in the Cyberpunk setting. During their investigation they will talk to the Sinful Adams (a gang which is imitating the Addams Family - fun!) and also find themselves in an unavoidable fight against drones which will also unavoidably melt some evidence (not as fun…).
This adventure once again leaves the crew with more questions than answers and I would recommend giving them a bit more stuff to reveal and to make decisions instead of just funneling them through content as written.
“Reaping the Reaper”
content warnings: suicide, mind control
Considerably longer than the previous two, this brings the storyline to a close. It’s multiple shorter jobs lined up after each other, some fun NPCs and quite a few combat encounters. This is one of those adventures that actually have some neat Netrunner combat in them and combat design in general is done well.
There are a few parts that will not pan out the way the adventure assumes they will for every group in here: NPCs to blindly trust, events they might be cautious enough to spot before they happen. These will have to be adjusted on the fly by the GM to avoid railroading.
At some point the adventure will send two NPCs with the group, which I could have done very well without. As a GM there’s already enough to do and track and there should be other failsafes in place for groups that can’t accomplish the task at hand than sending a bunch of NPCs with them. Much information is conveyed via these NPCs instead of letting the characters find out themselves.
My personal highlight? The restaurant “Mister Rice Guy”, a Rube Goldberg Machine version of a running sushi restaurant, which has become my go-to restaurant for Cyberpunk games. It’s technically part of another adventure in the book, though, and is just referenced here.
Other locations are once again the Forlorn Hope, the docks in Upper Marina, Guăngbō Tower in Little China, a crumbling building in the Hot Zone, a braindance club (for the final fight) and a few more minor locations. Not a bad selection for an adventure and a great way to show off Night City. Apart from the last location there are no maps provided, so I made my own for the fight in Guăngbō Tower and the docks. The final fight has a lot of enemies to face, but was well done with side objectives and ways to incorporate the environment into the fight.
“Reaping the Reaper” is yet another combat heavy adventure (with well done fights), but not without its faults. It’s an interesting side of the cyberpunk genre that isn’t shown in many other adventures though, so I think it’s worth a look.
Conclusion
The adventures go together seamlessly. So much so, that I wouldn’t even consider running them apart. It’s best for groups who want to see the more serious part of the Cyberpunk genre and GMs who are willing to iron out the kinks of the adventures. It features heavily on the grim dystopian part of Cyberpunk - conflict with artificial intelligence, death of innocents and fights are major parts of the adventures, while the more fun side of Cyberpunk, seen in other adventures like “A Bucket Full of Popcorn-Flavoured Kibble”, isn’t featured. Combat is encouraged more often than not. I interspersed our mini campaign with some Halloween screamsheets, but that was more of a band-aid than a solution to the fact that this adventure is best suited for tables that like the gritty part of Cyberpunk. I’m inclined to recommend only running it for a group that has at least some experience under their belt and start with lighter adventures if your players are just getting their feet wet with the game.
There were many parts I would have done differently, but I genuinely think there is a good story at its core. It just needs a lot of love and work to bring it out. If I were to run it again I would completely take it apart and make something new out of it, with some fleshed out motivations and schemes for the Reaper AI to make it really shine. If that’s worth the effort you’ll have to decide for yourself.
