New GM and Cyberpunk RED  

• Keep it simple

• Don't be overwhelmed, you're going to make some mistakes, we all did. That's fine.

• Know the rules (they are streamlined, but the rulebook isn't the easiest to digest, as its organization isn't exactly intuitive.).

 Of course, you'll need to read all the rules. But some parts are more important than others, as they allow you to understand the essence of the game. Reading them over and over again will help you get into the right mindset.

Read "Running Cyberpunk" chapter (starting p.387), again and again.

"A Cyberpunk Masterclass" (p.392 to p.394) is full of short but great advice. The most important for a newcomers are :

"Beat Charts" (p.395 to p.408) This section gives you excellent advice on how to build your Jobs and ensure that your games are fast-paced and fun for your players. You'll find plenty of excellent ideas for creating your own stories. 

Create a team with a purpose, "Meet the Teams" (p.390 in "Running cyberpunk" chapter) is dedicated to that. You have a fair amount of teams examples : Corpo team, Trauma team, Standard Edgerunner team, ganger team, Rock band team, Media team, etc...

- Session 0 will play a big role - 

Why is it so important to choose a type of TEAM ? 

Because, some roles are not so easy to handle for a first campaign (Executive / Media / Lawman / Rockerboy) don't hesitate to ask more about them if a player is going to choose one of them. You can create a team focused on them, it's the best way to incorporate such roles, but you need to do it during session 0.

How to choose ? 

It's an agreement between ALL the players AND the GM. Playing a "Cop" team is really not the same than playing a "Band" team, not at all. That's why everybody needs to be onboard. As the GM is going to write jobs for you, he also need to agree, because GM needs to have fun too. Whatever the choice you made, it's going to shape your campaign as Cyberpunk is about the player characters.

When ? 

Before character creation, for which this choice is the first step. Once the team theme has been defined, and the roles of all the PCs decided, it's time to move on to the creation of each character. (For D&D master, Role is NOT a class, not at all)

This is a misconception held by many new players who come from video games. You need to explain the difference between a Character and a Build.

A Cyberpunk character is a human being, with qualities and flaws. He has a past, that has shaped who he has become. That's why he behaves in a certain way that's unique to him. He has personal goals and unique methods for overcoming the obstacles that stand in his way.

A Build is the mechanical part of a character. To obtain it, you need to translate your character's background and identity into a sheet filled with STATs, Skills, Cyberwares and Gears. This sheet will simulate your character's actions in the CPR system via dice rolls.

You create a Character THEN you translate it into a Build in order to simulate his action inside the system

STEP 2. Translate it into a sheet

Your players will roleplay their Characters in a very dangerous setting. There will be many battles to be fought during your games. Many mysteries will be solved through investigations combining social interaction, clue gathering and analysis. In order to decide the result of your character action you will roll dice and each Characters need to have a Sheet. This Sheet is the mechanical part of your player's Characters : STATs, Skills, Cyberwares and Gears. A character sheet MUST be consistent with your Character (role/lifepath) and the lore.

MIN MAXING : The system allows a lot of min-maxing, that's not bad. However, as GM, you must ensure that character sheets are faithful to the characters they translate, and that they respect the Lore.

Examples :

• A low level Intelligence Barbarian may survive in DnD. A low level Intelligence character (INT 2) will die in a world like Cyberpunk.

• COOL 2 means you are asocial (shy, charisma of an oyster, etc...).

It's highly unlikely that you'll find character sheets where the STATs are either maxed out (8) or at the minimum allowed (2), and the character has no STATs between these two values. Most of your characters will have multiple 8 (that's pretty standard), one 2 (that's less standard, but still pretty common) and more average STAT. That's a good balance.

 It's a tactical ruleset BUT it's not a tactical RPG. The purpose of the game is not about combat, it's about roleplaying your character in NC, which will lead to violence sooner or later. Keep in mind that :

• Combat CAN and sometimes MUST be avoided.

• Actions have consequences

PCs are going to stay in the same city. They will build a network of allies and make some ennemies. The world around them is alive. You need your PC to feel it. You have a lot of NPCs inside the Core rulebook, use them. Create your own NPCs, make them part of your world and part of the PCs environnement.

Because of video game culture, some players tend to solve everyhting with violence. Some of them will kill people for the smallest of the smallest offence. Sooner or later they will kill someone dear to a dangerous person. Or they will directly antagonize the wrong dude. Make sure they understand that they are follwing a BLAZING path of glory. They will not survive. 

 You are not here to torture your PC, but this is a violent, unforgiven world, NC is a soul crushing machine. Your PCs must feel it too. They can be a ray of hope or a part of the system. Either way they gonna suffer, lose friends, family, compromise, do some grey stuff, bend their morale, etc...

This point has to be discussed during session 0. It's even more important for players coming from D&D where you play heros. D&D PCs are hard to kill (permanent), CPR PCs can die a lot more faster.

And I lied to you... there is no "MUST" here. Indeed the lore is going in that direction. But you are free to whatever you want at your table.

 You need to understand how the system works. You also need to assimilate the lore. Easy jobs are the best way to understand combat without killing everyone due to a mistake.

Mook < Lieutenant < mini-Boss < Boss. You have build for them in the core rule book and in the Hardened free DLC series. Use them.

Be Careful Handing Out Eddies. As there are 2 ways to improve you character, IP and Money, if you give too much money right from the start, your gonna be trouble later.

1. Be fair

2. Be patient, ask your players to be patient too

3. Be kind, ask your players to be kind too

4. Communication is key, deal with any issue as soon as possible, in the most honest way possible. And don't forget to be fair, patient and kind.

Try to play the game the way it was meant to be played before changing everything (rules and lore).

At the end of the day, whatever you do. If EVERYONE is having fun at your table (you included), you have reached your goal.

Everything else is not important. If you want to play a crew of pink-wearing catgirls working as Danger Gal detectives or a "batgirl" and her grenade launcher cyberpig ... that's fine. What is working at your table might not work at another table but you don't care.