A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement The Night City Guide

The Night City Guide is a role playing game supplement published by R. Talsorian Games for use with Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.

The supplement is available as a 186-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $11, as a softcover print on demand book for $23.99 or as both for $29.49. The original printed book is also available from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. It has 186 pages, with two being the front and rear covers and two being the front matter, Introduction and Contents. There are also colour maps of Night City included.

The Introduction explains how the book was created and that it’s usable, intended to be like a real database, using the Dataterm section, and Flashmaps, which show locations.

Welcome to Your Dataterm starts by explaining that a Dataterm – an in-game item – is a public information access module and terminal, placed in heavily armoured cases on street corners, serving information and Net connection to the users. This section is intended to simulate Dataterms in hardcopy format. Also on this page are instructions and “buttons” for using the Dataterm. This is followed by a two-page map of Night City.

FAX on File covers the city in broad strokes, detailing the background, location, weather, services, transportation, including vehicles and public transportation, hospitals, police, personal and financial services and media.

Flashmaps contains maps of California, public transit routes, some individual buildings and maps of Night City with different types of locations marked on them, with page references for where the locations are covered in the book, as well as some sidebars on other Night City services.

So What’s America Like in 2020? briefly covers America, and the US is now a nation in name only. It looks at the environment, government, the states, cities, city life, that not everything is bad and it’s pretty modern by Euro standards, though the cities live by the rule of the gun.

Vision & Fire: A Brief History of Night City is written as a newspaper article that has been reprinted, giving an overview of the 25-year history of Night City at the time of writing, from the original dream by Richard Night, through his murder, the subsequent Mob rule and the ousting of the Mob by the corporations to its present, a heavily armed society that is not what could be called peaceful.

People of Night City looks at various different types of people in the city, giving an overview of each and what they do, both for work and for fun and what they buy.

Threat Level, Threat Codes & Security explains these terms. Threat Level is an NCPD term using to rate how deadly an opponent is. Along with this are a combination of letters and numbers to designate combat capability, which together make the Threat Code, and finally the Security Level is code used to designate the stationary security measures a building or compound has available. The various different levels are then gone into. Finally, six of the best security forces that Night City has to offer are then covered.

The Gangs of Night City has a map of Night City with gang territories marked and details on 13 major gangs with descriptions, tags, colours and stats. This is followed by a list of smaller gangs with a single paragraph description and threat levels and codes. The gangs range from potentially friendly to totally psychotic.

Night City Controlled Urban Zones encompasses most of the book. It starts with an overview map of Night City, which is divided into different zones. The zones are named, given a brief overview and the page number in the supplement they’re covered in. The zones themselves are then covered. There are seventeen different major zones, each of which has some introductory text, places of interest and a map of the zone showing their location, NPCs, both major and potential contacts, and encounters. There are sometimes sidebars giving more information. The Combat Zone is another zone which, though it has a map, is generated by the GM rolling on various tables. Finally, The Suburban Sprawl gives briefer overviews of various places outside of Night City itself, some of which are cities in and of themselves.

Dataterm Utilities has call costs and the chance to find information on a variety of subjects as well as a chart of net access in Night City together with details on the named locations.

The Night City Guide in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Contents only cover the major sections. Navigation is okay. The text maintains a two-column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a variety of black and white images, which may have been custom at the time. Presentation is decent. This appears to be based on a scan, given its age, but it’s a decent one if that’s the case.

Much of the book is written as if it’s a genuine guidebook to the city, which may or may not appeal to everyone; it does help make the city seem like a real place, however. There’s plenty of detail on various parts of the city, sometimes to quite a surprising depth, but as it is a city, there’s always room for a GM to add their own things. Shops, businesses, locations, gangs, other people, there are plenty of different things in the book. The Night City Guide covers one of Cyberpunk’s defining locations in good detail and it can be found by clicking here.