Cyberpunk 2020

In June 2017 we presented the Cyberpunk 2020 Bundle, featuring the 1993 Second Edition of Mike Pondsmith‘s vintage RPG of the dark future, Cyberpunk 2020 from R. Talsorian Games. This world of corporate assassins, heavy metal heroes, and brainburning cyberhackers is packed with cutting-edge tech and intense urban action wrapped in an instantly identifiable 1990s style.

As the back cover puts it: “The Corps control the world from their skyscraper fortresses, enforcing their rule with armies of cyborg assassins. On the Street, boostergangs roam a shattered urban wilderness, killing and looting. The rest of the world is a perpetual party, as fashion-model techies in the hottest clubs rub biosculpt jobs with battle-armored roadwarriors. The future never looked so bad — but you can change it. You’ve got interface plugs in your wrists, weapons in your arms, lasers in your eyes, and biochips in your brain. You go where only the toughest and coolest can — because you’re cyberpunk.”

This huge collection presented DRM-free, non-watermarked .PDFs of the complete 258-page Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook and over a dozen supplements for both First and Second Editions — everything you need for a life on the fatal Edge where attitude is everything. Warm up your cyberwear and faxprinter, grab your mirrorshades and Dai Lung Magnum, tell the ripperdoc to stand by, and hit Night City’s mean streets and hot clubs in the unimaginably faraway future of AD 2020.

There were six titles in our Player’s Collection (retail value $48):

• Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 Second Edition (retail $15): The core rulebook for this quintessentially ’90s RPG of high-tech lowlifes.
• Four role guides (total retail $27) adding options for individual character classes: Solo of Fortune (mercenaries), Protect & Serve (law enforcement), Wild Side (fixers), and Rockerboy (rock’n’roll will never die!).
• Blackhand’s Street Weapons 2020 (retail $6): The big book of guns and every kind of armament.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Referee’s Collection with thirteen more titles worth an additional $101.50:

• Night City (retail $9): One of the best city sourcebooks for Cyberpunk or any modern-day RPG, this jam-packed 180-page sourcebook covers Cyberpunk‘s signature urban sprawl.
• Three 2020 worldbooks (total retail $23) that look at life on the edge outside the US: Pacific Rim Sourcebook, Eurosource Plus, and Rough Guide to the UK.
• Rache Bartmoss’s Guide to the Net (retail $9): Rache Bartmoss (the world’s greatest netrunner) is dead — which finally gives him time to write this acidulous, gonzo-journalist tour of the information superhighway.
• Land of the Free and Home of the Brave (total retail $20.50): Two linked supplements on fallen America. Home of the Brave covers NPCs, plot hooks, and more from this fractured union. Land of the Free presents a sprawling road-trip campaign.
• Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! (retail $7): The unexpurgated Cyberpunk referee’s guide with some of the best GM advice for this or any RPG.
• Chrome Compilation 1-2 and Chrome Compilation 3-4 (total retail $25): These trendsetting styleguides to the equipment and fashion of 2020 were called “Chromebooks” before we got laptops.
• Deep Space (retail $8): Escape the polluted Earth for the high frontier of Paradise Station, Chryse Base, and beyond.

That’s a total retail value of US$149.50 for the equivalent of a handful of spoofed creds from a junkware heist. Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) went to this offer’s designated charity — really, who else? — the Electronic Frontier Foundation.