R. Talsorian updates on Cyberpunk RED, The Witcher, and a new secret project

R. Talsorian Games made several announcements in a pair of posts this week. On Monday, the company posted the Gen Con 2023 Update with several product updates for the previously announced Cyberpunk products including the Danger Gal Dossier faction and NPC sourcebook and the stand-alone boxed set Cyberpunk Edgerunners Mission Kit to advance the game’s timeline to the 2077 setting of the video game. There were two big announcements included, however.

First, a new six-mission campaign for Cyberpunk RED was announced, Tales of the RED: Forlorn Hope. Set in and around the classic Edgerunner bar from Cyberpunk 2020, the adventure includes six interlinked missions from Eddy Webb, Chris Spivey, Linda Evans, Tracie Hearne, Paris Arrowsmith, Francis Stewart, and Mellissa Wong. No release date has been set at this time, but it’s listed as “the next book in the Cyberpunk RED line”.

The Witcher TTRPG will go on hiatus as CD Projekt Red begins development on the fourth Witcher video game. In order to make sure that the tabletop RPG products stay in line with the lore from the games, several products including the Rodolf’s Guides series have been placed on hold. From the blog post:

The Witcher TTRPG line is not dead, and we have many plans for it when things are more solidified, but we don’t feel that we can move forward at the moment in a way that will produce books of quality as part of the broader Witcher canon.

“We will be looking at compiling some DLC material based on pre-existing concepts that will not be changing, but I don’t want to promise anything until I’m certain of it.

However, it’s not all gloomy news from R. Talsorian as Witcher TTRPG designer Cody Pondsmith has a new project on the way. So far, all we have is the codename “Blue Moon” and a brief tease:

You’ve seen beyond the mask and now you must make a choice: forget what you’ve seen or leave what you know behind. If you join us, you’ll be able to protect everything you’ve ever known and everything beyond your wildest dreams. Our enemy lurks in the darkest corners of reality. They hide behind masks of deception, waiting to strike.

But remember, once you step through the gate you cannot go back.

The site promises a larger reveal on August 31.

 

[MGibster]

In my opinion; The Witcher RPG was a missed opportunity for R.Tal. They could have distilled Interlock into a tight fantasy system, that played fast at the table, and delivered a solid Witcher RPG fix. Instead you get a game that has all needless fiddly bits of previous R.Tal games brought forward to today.

Red was a missed opportunity as well. We played a campaign, and my group unanimously agreed that Red is just not a very good game. If I run another Cyberpunk game it'll be using Cyberpunk 2020.

 

[jdrakeh]

The truth is that R. Tal has had some pretty crummy games scattered across their entire history as a company. Bubblegum Crisis, Armored Trooper VOTOMS, and Dragonball Z were all objectively terrible games for a myriad of reasons, from awful system design to eye-killing layout and graphics. People seem to have a blind spot when it comes to good ol' R. Tal in that regard. They really only had two great games, IMO (those being Cyberpunk 2020 and Castle Falkenstein*). And, sure, Mekton Zeta was decent. But, hell, even the genre defining Cyberpunk 2013 was a hot mess. In my estimation, as much as I like Mekton II and Cyberpunk 2020, they've had more misses than hits.

*And the Falkenstein game line has some pretty iffy books in it.

 

[Jaeger]

The Cyberpunk Red core book is horribly organized and laid out.

Yeah the presentation and organization of Cyberpunk Red is just inexplicably appalling

Red was a missed opportunity as well. We played a campaign, and my group unanimously agreed that Red is just not a very good game.

This is all completely inexcusable given the amount of time Pondsmith says he worked on the game.

There is still a enthusiastic CP2020 community out there. Would it have been so hard for him to go:

"Hey, been working on CPRed. Want groups to playtest the living **** out of it, and help me make it the best version of CP released to date. Who's in?"

The response would have been massive. (Same for the Witcher RPG...)

Just no excuse for R.Tal not to deliver a tight, playtested game.

They really only had two great games, IMO (those being Cyberpunk 2020 and Castle Falkenstein*). And, sure, Mekton Zeta was decent. But, hell, even the genre defining Cyberpunk 2013 was a hot mess. In my estimation, as much as I like Mekton II and Cyberpunk 2020, they've had more misses than hits.

^Truth^

IMHO it shows that once you have a game concept that people are excited about; Most 'professional' game designers got to where they are mostly through desire, enthusiasm, and persistence vs. actually being good at mechanical game design.

Shadowrun, I'm looking at you too...

For me the subsystems (crafting and more) in The Witcher RPG really killed my interest in it. For an IP that conceivably could have drawn new people into the hobby, it really should have been more accessible to new players. Heck, I even balked at running it.

^So much This^

In my opinion; they might as well have done a "5e compatible" version of The Witcher, and cashed in like everyone else did on the boom while they could...

Sad really, as there is nothing inherently broken with the underlying the Stat+Skill+d10 system. It just seems that they just can't help themselves but to bork it up if given half a chance...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sad really, as there is nothing inherently broken with the underlying the Stat+Skill+d10 system. It just seems that they just can't help themselves but to bork it up if given half a chance...

I mean, I kind of don't want to be too harsh on Red because it's at least a move in the right direction, as compared to er... every move they've made since Cyberpunk 2020.

But it's missing a lot of what made 2020 great, and doesn't really gain... anything. It runs a bit faster in combat, I guess - but at the cost of having compelling combat. 2020's was kind of slow and clunky but at the same time, it was often nailbiting and thrilling because so much could happen, and it did feel like an action movie, just in extreme slow motion. But this... it's not terrible. But it's not exciting. It's just like a generic Interlock combat system.

You can tell the core problem in that all the gear is generic - and that should absolutely never under any circumstances be true in a cyberpunk game. Cyberpunk as a genre is defined by specificity, and we live in a world where specificity matters, so we kind of know that. So when a game makes everything generic, as so many cyberpunk RPGs have, they're not getting their own setting. 2020 profoundly got that. Shadowrun 1/2/3E all got that. And if anything it should be a little easier to do in this day and age. And not all of the gear stuff has to be reflected mechanically - it can also just be the stories people tell about brands, about models and so on - Red touches on that - and does list brands could apply to the generic stuff, but it doesn't really lean into it.

I think with a second edition, and like serious thought, they could completely turn it around, because you say, Interlock's basic underlying system is fine. They just need to completely reorganise it, and honestly to re-do the combat and gear sections of the game.

 

[Nikosandros]

Red was a missed opportunity as well. We played a campaign, and my group unanimously agreed that Red is just not a very good game. If I run another Cyberpunk game it'll be using Cyberpunk 2020.

Yes, I played in a couple of adventures last fall and while the GM was great, the system did nothing for me. Quite a disapointement.

 

[Jaeger]

I mean, I kind of don't want to be too harsh on Red because it's at least a move in the right direction, as compared to er... every move they've made since Cyberpunk 2020.

This is what really makes it a waste.

It's the same for The Witcher.

There are some ideas I actually like. It's just that it seems that they chose to implement them in the most clunky way that they could think of.

Just lots of little things that all added up when you actually sat down to play.

 

[MGibster]

But it's missing a lot of what made 2020 great, and doesn't really gain... anything. It runs a bit faster in combat, I guess - but at the cost of having compelling combat. 2020's was kind of slow and clunky but at the same time, it was often nailbiting and thrilling because so much could happen, and it did feel like an action movie, just in extreme slow motion. But this... it's not terrible. But it's not exciting. It's just like a generic Interlock combat system.

And it's counterintuitive at times. The first time I read through Friday Night Firefight, I became somewhat confused about how melee damage worked. If you have a high body and do 4d6 damage with a punch, picking up know won't add to that damage. In fact, you'll just do the 1d6 knife damage but at least you take half off your opponent's armor I guess. I had to re-read the rules a few times before it finally sank in.

But it's missing a lot of what made 2020 great, and doesn't really gain... anything. It runs a bit faster in combat, I guess - but at the cost of having compelling combat. 2020's was kind of slow and clunky but at the same time, it was often nailbiting and thrilling because so much could happen, and it did feel like an action movie, just in extreme slow motion. But this... it's not terrible. But it's not exciting. It's just like a generic Interlock combat system.

This is really it in a nutshell. Combat was quicker and less lethal, but it wasn't exciting as your options are fairly limited when compared to 2020.

You can tell the core problem in that all the gear is generic - and that should absolutely never under any circumstances be true in a cyberpunk game. Cyberpunk as a genre is defined by specificity, and we live in a world where specificity matters, so we kind of know that.

Yeah. In the old game I could have an NPC say something like, "The best those low rent goons can afford to pack are those Budget Arms 9mm and you can't hit the broad side of a barn with one of those." The cyberwear, vehicles, weapons, etc., etc. are all very generic and boring. Which is really odd since the #1 rule of Cyberpunk, in their own words, is style over substance. There's no style here.

But the biggest problem is the setting. I dislike it with a great deal of intensity. How does it make sense that a sophisticated piece of technology like a cyberleg will cost just as much money as a box magazine for a rifle? It's tough to be a stylish edgerunner when you've got to take public transportation to work because cars are far outside of your reach.

I mean, I kind of don't want to be too harsh on Red because it's at least a move in the right direction, as compared to er... every move they've made since Cyberpunk 2020.

Damning with faint praise, sir.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I personally feel like we need to go back in time to when FUZION was being designed, and have an intervention with Mike Pondsmith, because ever since then, every system RTG has put out has been deeply uninspired, and FUZION itself was absolutely a mess.

FUZION is a legend to my group - but not in a good way - because a Champions: The New Millennium combat which lasted 3 minutes of in-game time (admittedly quite a long combat) took over 5 hours of real-life time.

Someone should have explained to him that Interlock needed to stay deeply specific to each game it was used for. That genericizing it wasn't a good idea. Also I kind of wonder if he just needed to hand off Cyberpunk 2020, because the last few books for it there was a kind of deep weariness with the game, and the players, and what the players wanted (which was y'know a more fun and dumb and shooty game than Mike really wanted).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In my opinion; they might as well have done a "5e compatible" version of The Witcher, and cashed in like everyone else did on the boom while they could...

Sad really, as there is nothing inherently broken with the underlying the Stat+Skill+d10 system. It just seems that they just can't help themselves but to bork it up if given half a chance...

The Witcher got tangled up in subsystems. Had it kept things simple, I think it would've been a way better game. One thing I think it did pretty well was balancing the source material and the game mechanics, something RPGs aren't always great about.

I seem to be in the minority in this thread in that I actually find myself really liking Cyberpunk Red as I'm reading through it right now. My one group wants to play it after we finish our current campaign, so I'll see how it is in play then when I run it.

 

[Jaeger]

The Witcher got tangled up in subsystems. Had it kept things simple, I think it would've been a way better game. One thing I think it did pretty well was balancing the source material and the game mechanics, something RPGs aren't always great about.

Keeping things more in-line with the crunch level of the Quickstart was the way they should have gone.

Cut the skill list in half, keep crits at just +10 over defense. And honestly defenses could be made static, speeding up combat by a lot.

I also think that hit locations should only be rolled when you score a crit, with the locations SP affecting the potential crit. The 'armor stacking rules' from the main book could be used to work out a general SP for what you are wearing overall. Similar with the weapon damage rules - stuff that should only come into play on a crit or fumble.

The spells did need actual casting rolls to a TN though. For most of them you are just rolling to see if you hit a fumble, which I found a bit odd.

There is a game there; it just has too much fiddly clutter to be ready for prime time.